Star Trek: Yesterday's Champion
by Caustic Paladin
Summary: The Romulan Nero changed history- now Jim Kirk must believe that he can do the same to save the woman he loves. Once he gave up Edith Keeler to save his time. This time... he may save her. That, too, may have repercussions down the time stream...
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: As a warning, the only canon I am consistently drawing on is the 2009 movie. After that? Some episodes of the Original Series happened, many didn't. And, while many consider it "canon," I do not draw on any part of the series Enterprise. I may contradict things that are done in later shows, or ignore them. So keep in mind— 2009 movie is canon, all else is suspect at best. Also, I am using stardates as done in the 2009 movie, and going with the creators' assertion that the Enterprise of this movie has a crew in excess of 1000 people.

Also, I have changed the prefix to _"Enterprise,"_ as "USS" is completely unrealistic. The letters before a ship's name indicate "flag of registry." HMS = His/Her Majesty's ship. USS = United States Ship. As the traditions of Starfleet are entirely naval? USS is not accurate, as this is not a "United States Ship." Therefore it is UFPS, as it is the United Federation of Planets Ship _Enterprise._

* * *

><p><em>Captain's log, stardate unknown: Commander Spock and I are currently living in the United States of America, in the year 1930. This time period is amazing— though I probably shouldn't say that where Spock can hear me, he's trying to work up something that will let him display his tricorder's recording of the history we jumped into to correct at a size to actually be some use, and he's… kind of <em>grumpy_ about the local technology…._

_Okay, wait— let me start at the beginning. Sorry, I'm just… a little enthusiastic right now._

_Okay. On stardate 2259.31, while on a routine patrol of an area of space sometimes still frequented by Orion pirates and slavers, the _Enterprise_ detected some sort of disturbances in the very fabric of space and time. Given the ship's history with the Romulan Nero, we reported the disturbances to Starfleet command and made way for the apparent center of the disturbance, a barely-M-class planet with a string of numbers as its designation._

_The disturbances in the space-time field around the planet remained bad, making for a rough ride, and we decided to orbit the planet several times in an attempt to map them out and plot a safe, calm orbit so that we could give the place a once over. In the process, some of the _Enterprise_'s helm systems suffered an overload, and Mr. Sulu took a serious electrical shock, accompanied by some very minor burns. Sickbay was notified, and Bones— Ship's Doctor Leonard McCoy, I'll have to remember that when I get around to reading this into the actual logs— came to the bridge himself. He decided to give Sulu, who had begun suffering a heart flutter, two-tenths of a CC of cordrazine, a serious stimulant that, in small amounts, saves lives. In large amounts, it mostly causes the brain to jump its railings— I've heard that there are places where the stuff is used recreationally, but after what I saw… I have a hard time believing that anyone would do that to themselves deliberately._

_Sulu recovered almost instantly, but as Dr. McCoy was putting his medical kit away, the _Enterprise_ hit another bit of that space-time disturbance— and Bones fell on his own hypospray, injected himself with about ten CCs of Cordrazine. He then went into some sort of paranoid delusion, fled the bridge, and managed to get to transporter room one before security could catch him. He knocked transporter Chief Kyle out, and beamed himself down to the planet. We were left with no choice but to follow. Spock, Scotty, Uhura and I beamed down with a pair of security men to help deal with McCoy when we found him, and we found this… well, this big ring of stone, like a lopsided doughnut. Spock said it was at the center of the temporal disturbances that were playing hell with the local spacetime— and McCoy appeared, tried to attack us. Spock subdued him with that nerve pinch of his— I wish he could teach me that, but he says that it's at least partly a function of Vulcan touch-telepathy, so I'm out of luck— and we went back to the big ring of stone._

_Turns out that the thing is… alive, or at least sentient. It's a sort of machine, calls itself the Guardian of Forever, and it says that all of time and space are available to us through it. Okay, that could be really handy, the things we could learn are just… phenomenal. So it starts showing us Earth's history, and Spock's dutifully recording it on his tricorder, Scotty's watching the show the Guardian's putting on, Uhura's checking in with the ship— and McCoy wakes up, bowls over the two security men who were standing over him, and charges through the hole at the middle of the Guardian of Forever while it's displaying Earth's past— and vanishes._

_At the same time, Uhura loses contact with the _Enterprise,_ complete cut-off, no static or anything, just— gone._

_And all of us, even Spock, felt… a wave of sudden unease. Nothing specific just… unease. Discomfort. Like something had just gone badly wrong, something so big and fundamental that even us little bags of flesh could feel it._

_It didn't take long to figure out, with the aid of the Guardian. When McCoy went back into Earth's past, he changed something, something big, even bigger than whatever changes that nut-job Nero did— and Starfleet, the _Enterprise_… none of it existed. At all. We might none of us still exist, save that we were in the immediate area of the Guardian, so preserved, for a while at least._

_Spock was able to determine approximately what was displaying in the Guardian's center when McCoy had entered Earth's past, since he'd been recording it on his tricorder, and after some discussion, he and I came back to try to prevent McCoy from making… whatever changes he made._

_We had a of a rough time, at first. Encounters with the local police, having to steal local clothing… not exactly a day at the park. But then we met Edith. Edith Keeler, who runs a 'soup kitchen,' a place where she feeds those who can't feed themselves. She gave Spock and I honest work (though I can't help but wonder what she'd think if she saw Spock without the stocking cap he's wearing in public at all times, to cover his Vulcan ears), and later helped us find a place to sleep._

_We've been here for five weeks now, and I've been… seeing Edith. Socially. She's incredible, amazing, years ahead of her time— she reads what the natives of the time call "scienti-fiction," stories that speculate about the future and other sentient races, and she honestly believes that mankind will go to other planets, other star systems, and do it soon. She believes that humanity will find ways to live at peace with itself, and she believes that everyone who will make an effort deserves a chance as long as they are making that effort._

_And if I'm going to be honest… I've fallen in love with her. Leaving here… leaving now, I guess… it's going to hurt. But I can do it, because… partly because things are very different here and now than in my time, and there's no way that our relationship can progress beyond the "holding hands and kissing stage," not without risking her reputation as a lady— and I won't do that to her. _

_But I can also face leaving her because I'm pretty sure that when I look her up once I'm back on the Enterprise, I'm going to find that she did make a difference in her time, that she had something to do with humanity reaching the stars. She's so strong, so certain, so… well, so _good,_ that I can't believe she won't make a difference in the world. Spock's first attempt at viewing the information on his tricorder ended badly (I want holographic projection and enlargement on the next model— my recommendation to Starfleet Headquarters goes in as soon as we're back), but it indicated that her belief in peace being the way of the future would get her a meeting with the President of the United States in six years or so. That fits Edith as I've come to know her— her belief is so strong that she's bound to make a positive difference in the world._

_I can hardly wait to find out what that difference is. Or will be, I guess_.

Jim Kirk sat up from where he'd been bent over the pad of paper on the little writing desk in the room he and Spock were sharing, looked at what he'd just written, and grinned. He would miss Edith, wonder about her— but he could go, return to the _Enterprise_, knowing that Edith had helped shape his future. And if he and Spock were wrong, if they'd somehow already missed McCoy, and whatever he had done to change history, prevent Starfleet and the _Enterprise_… well, then staying here could be….

He shook off that thought and stood, stretching the kinks out of his back and shoulders. He and Edith were going to see a movie that night, something about one of Kirk's own heroes, a biographical picture about Abraham Lincoln. He was looking forward to the movie itself— and of course to Edith's company.

Spock came in just as Kirk finished changing to clean clothes and combing his hair. He nodded at Kirk, set down a brown paper bag on his work table, and looked at his captain.

"You are going out with Miss Keeler again?" Spock asked.

"Yeah, we're going to go see that new movie about Abraham Lincoln."

"A hero of yours, I believe you have said," Spock said, standing in his customary at-ease posture. "Captain… may I express my concern as to the wisdom of your relationship with Miss Keeler? Once we stop Dr. McCoy from changing history, we will be snapped back to our own time— will that not cause you… distress?"

"It will, yes," Kirk agreed. He indicated the writing desk where he'd stuck the notes for his log in the drawer. "I'm pretty sure I'll be able to handle it, Spock— there's notes for my logs when we get back in the desk drawer, if you're curious as to my thinking, feel free to read them. I think you'll understand, and if not, I can try to explain it when I get back."

"Very well, Captain," Spock said, turning and taking several smaller parcels out of his bag. "I will read your notes over before I test these… 'electronics parts' for suitability. I shall see you when you return."

"All right, Spock," Kirk said, and put on his jacket. "Be careful— don't want to fry the circuit box, or anything."

"Fusebox," Spock said, his voice slightly acidic. "Would that we were in the age of circuit breakers, Captain."

Kirk chuckled at the disapproval in Spock's voice as he went out to go collect Edith for their evening out.

When he came back three and a half hours later, smiling and still tasting Edith's lips on his, Spock had set up a huge bank of fuses and parts across his own bunk, and had covered the writing desk with more parts, all hooked rather precariously into his tricorder, which sat on a work table between bed and desk.

Spock looked up at him— and Kirk saw that the Vulcan had actually gone pale, and there was a look of… some emotion, something that he was trying to control and mostly succeeding with— but only mostly.

"What's wrong, Spock?" Kirk asked, striding over to the work table. "What did you find?"

"Captain… Jim." Spock sat up straight, and Kirk saw that he'd managed to make a screen some six inches across, and that you could see the images much more clearly than you could on the little one-inch screen of the tricorder. "I have found the event that Doctor McCoy changed, and… the information is going to… upset you."

"What happened?" Kirk asked, looking at the screen, now filled with a newspaper story about the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. "Come on, Spock, dragging it out just makes it worse."

"Very well," Spock said, his voice peculiarly leaden. "I have found the point where history diverges, Captain. And Edith Keeler is the focal point of that divergence.

"Captain, in the timeline created by Dr. McCoy's actions, Edith Keeler became more and more vocal and more and more noted for her stand for peace, for tolerance… for pacifism. While her stance was both admirable and forward-looking… it was ill-timed."

"How can a desire for peace be ill-timed, Spock?" Kirk asked, looking askance at his friend. "I mean— well, you're no pacifist, Spock, but I know you prefer a peaceful solution when one's available, and when… when peace is a rational solution."

Jim carefully didn't mention his friend's willingness to see the Romulan who had destroyed the planet Vulcan— and Spock's human mother with it— die without being offered the option of surrender. That moment had been just between them— and it had maybe been a deciding factor in their continuing, deepening friendship that Kirk had never mentioned it or reported it at all.

"Indeed, Captain," Spock said, his voice leaden. He manipulated the controls of the tricorder, showed Kirk pieces of the history he'd recorded to back up what he said as he explained. "However, Edith Keeler's love of peace led to her being called into conference with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936. In that conference, she convinced him to take a much more reserved stance on the growing tensions in the rest of the world.

"Through some chain of events that I have yet to fathom, it seems that President Roosevelt's more reserved stance on the rise of the Axis powers prevented the Japanese from bombing Pearl Harbor— and led to America not entering the second World War until late in 1943. This gave time for Nazi researchers to complete both the V-2 rocket— and the atomic bomb.

"With the bomb and the V-2 to carry it, Germany and the Axis powers won the war… and this led, quite directly, to Earth not coming into contact with Vulcan when she originally did, to a complete lack of Starfleet— or the _Enterprise_."

"So… so Bones somehow convinced Edith to… what to become more, I don't know, more outspoken about her beliefs, is that what you're saying?" Jim Kirk asked— though the quiet pain on his friend's face, the pain that no one else would even see, told him that it wasn't that easy.

"No, Captain," Spock said. Again, he fiddled with the controls of the tricorder— and he showed Jim Kirk a picture of a newspaper article, torn out and put in a scrapbook at some point. Edith's picture was at the head of the article— and the headline read, "Slum 'angel' dies in traffic accident.'

Kirk stepped back from the screen, almost staggered back, and pressed himself against the wall beside the window.

"Spock, I'm in love with her." Somehow, his voice came out even, not the shout of denial that he wanted to let out.

Spock nodded. He had read the Captain's log, as had been suggested. Then he spoke, slowly and unwillingly stating the awful truth. "Jim, if history is to return to what it was… Edith Keeler must die."


	2. Chapter 2

For a long moment, Jim Kirk just stared at his best friend— then he snapped "No! No, I won't accept that, Spock!"

"Jim, I understand that—"

"No!" Kirk stepped away from the wall and his body language became that of a man ready to fight. "Damn it, Spock, there's a way out of this! A way that lets her live, that lets her be— be happy, and well, and _alive,_ dammit!"

"Captain, your distress is perfectly understandable," Spock said, carefully not rising to the challenge in Kirk's posture. "But if we are to prevent millions of deaths by atomic bomb, then we have to prevent Dr. McCoy from saving Edith Keeler's life."

"Like hell we do!" Kirk said, his voice rising a little— but Spock sensed that the younger man's anger wasn't at him. "Spock, this isn't a no-win situation— you know I don't believe that such a thing as a no-win situation _exists!_ Not ever."

"Jim, you can't write a piece of code that over-writes the rules of history," Spock said, shaking his head a little. "I wish there were a way, b—"

"What if it was Uhura!" Kirk asked, leaning forward and catching Spock's eyes. "What if history said that Nyota had to die, Spock! What would you do then!

"Spock, I love her! I— if I could, if there were any way to make it happen without deserting my post, my world, my whole life, I'd stay here, stay with Edith, marry her! I want— Spock, please!" Kirk swiped angrily at the tears leaking from his eyes. "Spock, if it was just leaving her to live her life, I could do it, but I can't just… leave her to _die_.

"Please, Spock— help me find a way. Please!"

Spock straightened up— he'd stepped back and leaned against his work table when Jim had asked what he would do if it were Nyota, stepped back and leaned against the table because in that moment, he truly understood what his friend was going through.

Spock closed his eyes, ran over the words the Guardian of Forever had said when they had prepared to leap into it to try and prevent McCoy's changes. "When you have restored history to its correct course, you will return to this time and place automatically."

That didn't seem to leave a lot of leeway, to leave any room to help his captain, his friend, out of the trap that circumstances had placed him in. To return history to its proper course, Edith Keeler had to die. Simply telling her of the danger… it wouldn't work. She might sense— would _probably_ sense, the woman was so intuitive that Spock suspected she had some minor telepathic talent— that they believed that they were telling the truth. She would want to help— but her belief in peace, in a future where peace was real, was too strong. She would not be able to ignore that, to turn away from it, any more than Jim Kirk could just accept her fate.

She had to die, so that they could return to their own time, so that the Nazis would not develop atomic weapons before any of their opposition. And once she was dead, he, Jim and Dr. McCoy would return to their own time—

—Wait. Dr. McCoy. He had gone through the Guardian of Forever without his medical kit, with only the clothes on his back, but… but he was still a doctor. And if they snapped back to their own time once Miss Keeler died, then perhaps, if he could make it happen….

"There is… a chance, Jim." Spock opened his eyes to see his friend's face virtually light up with hope. He spoke quickly, trying to make Kirk understand that he felt it was a slim chance. "Just a chance— it will be very risky, and it will involve… Captain, we will have to tell Miss Keeler the truth of our presence, the truth of how history was changed— and that may be more than she is able to handle."

"I think you're underestimating her, Spock," Kirk said, his voice cautiously hopeful. "Okay, so after that… what?"

"We tell her the truth." Spock sighed, thought carefully, then said, "We tell her about McCoy. We make sure that one of us escorts her everywhere she goes that involves crossing so much as a single street. Then, once Dr. McCoy gets here, we consult with him on finding a _reversible method_ of ending Edith Keeler's life— and we endeavor to take her back with us to our own time. If the _Enterprise_ is restored, surely Dr. McCoy, having been able to oversee her death, will be able to revive Miss Keeler before she suffers any permanent ill effects."

Jim Kirk stared at his first officer and best friend for a long moment, amazed at the way his mind worked— and how swiftly it had done so.

"That's…." Kirk licked his suddenly-dry lips, then said, "That's a hell of a long shot, Spock— but if you think we can make it work, and it's our only chance… we'll try it.

"Spock… thank you."

"Thank me if it succeeds, Captain." The Vulcan squared his shoulders. "I suspect that Miss Keeler is already in bed for the evening. Tomorrow, then, we shall have to tell her the truth of our origins."

"At least it shouldn't be hard to prove our _bona fides_," Kirk said with a small smile. "We can show her the tricorder, our communicators, our phasers— and then you can take your hat off, Mr. Spock."

"Indeed," Spock said seriously, though Kirk didn't miss the tiny spark of amusement in his eyes. "And if all else fails, I shall gladly bleed for the cause."

Kirk snorted, nodded, and chuckled a little bit. "If that helps, then maybe Bones will stop calling you a green-blooded son-of-a-bitch."

"Captain, I believe that hoping to save Edith Keeler's life is the only miracle that we should ask for. Greed is ill-becoming in a Starfleet officer."

Kirk laughed, and the sound was filled with relief. "Of course, Spock— you're right, one miracle per mission ought to be enough."

Twenty minutes later, both men had retreated to their bunks and fallen asleep— though Spock was forced to use a Vulcan meditation technique to block out the sounds of Jim Kirk's snores.

After they had cleaned up after the simple supper that Edith's mission had provided for many homeless people the next evening, Jim asked Edith, as they walked home, if she would come by their room for a few minutes.

"I realize that the invitation is short notice," Jim added before she responded, "but… Edith, you know that Spock and I don't really belong here— you've commented on it, even.

"Well, circumstances have made it necessary that we tell you the whole truth behind our presence here, and…. Will you come? Please?"

Edith looked sideways and up at Jim (not too far, she was fairly tall for a woman), and smiled a little. "So I am finally going to find out what you were the 'captain' of, am I?

"Of course I'll come, Jim— I wouldn't miss it."

"Thank you," he said, breathing slowly and carefully. "I never liked having to keep secrets from you, Edith— it's going to be a relief to be honest with you."

"I'm glad that you feel that way," Edith said, and squeezed his arm gently. "I… Jim, I care for you a great deal, and this secret you've been keeping has been in the way of that caring."

"Then I'll be even more glad to tell you the truth than I was before," Jim said. He walked silently for a moment, then said, "I should warn you… some of what we have to tell you will be difficult to believe, and some of it… could upset you. Even frighten you."

"You won't let anything hurt me," Edith said, her voice sure and knowing, "so I won't be afraid, Jim."

"You have no idea how much I hope you're right," Kirk replied.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Spock moving ahead of them by ten paces or so. If Edith noticed the almost paranoid care that her escorts took at intersections, she didn't comment on it.

In the building where they all had rooms, Edith excused herself to her own room to freshen up, and Kirk and Spock went into their rooms and removed their uniforms and equipment from their hiding place under some loose floorboards under Spock's bunk. Then Spock sat at his work table while Kirk paced the room restlessly for the five minutes that it took Edith Keeler to arrive and knock.

Jim let her in, seated her in the room's best chair, then pulled one over to where he could sit opposite her. He leaned forwards and took her hands in his own, looked into her hazel eyes, and said slowly, "Edith, some of what I say to you at first may seem unbelievable— but I can prove certain of our claims, and… and I hope to be able to show you enough that you'll believe the rest of it."

"You're an honest man, Jim Kirk," Edith said, and smiled at him slowly but brilliantly. "So honest that you went to the place where you and Spock originally stole the clothes you wore when I first met you and paid for them— overpaid, even."

"How did you know about that?" Kirk asked, surprised.

"I went to offer to pay for them, after you'd been here for a week, only to see you leaving the building." She squeezed his hands, smiled still more dazzlingly, and said, "I spoke to the people in the building until I found the one you'd paid for the clothing, and I was so pleased… well, that's why I said yes when you asked me out, Jim."

"Oh," Kirk replied, and he grinned a little. "Well… hopefully, that will help now, because… Edith, you remember when I told you about the author who, a hundred years or so from now, will write a novel around the theme of 'let me help,' will recommend those words over even 'I love you,' right?"

"Of course I remember, Jim." She smiled and her eyes lit up. "I wish I could read it."

Spock stared. Edith Keeler meant what she said, literally— and he didn't believe that she meant that she wished she could read a book that she thought his captain was imagining. She believed in the book, in the future that Jim had seemingly hinted about.

Jim Kirk had been just as shocked as Spock, and was staring at Edith in a mixture of surprise and delight. "Edith… if things work out how I want them to, you will. I'll loan you my copy."

Edith Keeler's eyes widened, but only for a moment— then she said, her voice small and breathless, "You and Mr. Spock… you're from the future, aren't you?"

"Yes, Edith. We're from the future. A possible future, anyway." Kirk took a deep breath. "You… believe it." It wasn't quite a question.

"Of course, I believe it, it makes sense, Jim, makes so much make sense." Edith's eye's were sparkling with delight and wonder as she said, "I don't suppose you brought anything with you? A machine, something I could hold and… and know was a part of the future?"

Kirk grinned, stood, and went to the closet. He took down the pile of clothes and tools from the top shelf where Spock had put them after getting them out of the hiding place, took them over to Edith, and carefully set the pile down in her lap, picking up the phasers before she could touch them. "These are dangerous, Edith— the future is a more peaceful place than now, but it isn't perfect, and we're… explorers. Sometimes, we need weapons."

"Though these weapons, unlike most of those available in this era, have an option for merely subduing an opponent, rendering them unconscious," Spock said, his voice steady. "We prefer a nonviolent solution to problems, but there are times when force must be used."

Edith had picked up Spock's tricorder, temporarily unhooked from the rig that let its content from the Guardian of Forever be scanned easily, and asked, "What is this for?"

"It is a device for scanning and recording information," Spock said, standing and moving to stand beside her. "It is called a 'tricorder,' because it records information three ways— visual information, audio information, and scientific data. Information such as air composition, life signs, other important data." Spock reached past her and pointed at one of the control pads. "Press that, then point the top of the device at the captain."

Edith did so, her smile becoming that of a child on Christmas morning. At Spock's instruction, she then looked at the screen and said, "Oh— heartbeat, respiration, even blood pressure, just from pointing it at you, Jim! And what's the little arrow mean?"

"Touch the symbol, and the next screen will show," Spock said. He watched with approval as Edith Keeler did so, read the information the tricorder presented aloud. Then she looked up and said, "This must make things so very much easier for doctors in your time— all of that information available at the touch of a button!"

"Indeed," Spock agreed as Edith looked at his and Jim's communicators. "There are tricorders made specifically for medical scanning, though they do use a separate, hand-held scanner to gather information about injury and illness— the tricorder's actual sensors aren't calibrated for the level of delicacy often required by medical professionals."

Edith let Jim demonstrate the communicators to her, listened to his assurance that, even without a starship to relay their signal, their range was planet-wide.

"Starship," Edith said, pouncing on the word after Jim had finished his explanation of the communicators. "That's what you captain, isn't it, Jim? A starship?"

"Yes," Kirk said, smiling. "I'm Captain of the _UFPS Enterprise_, Edith."

"Oh, this is all so— so marvelous!" Edith said— then she visibly calmed down and stroked the material of Jim's uniform over-tunic, seeming to delight in the smooth, strong material. "But… you must have had a reason for telling me, rather than merely wanting to— you're both military men, that is plain, and I don't see you telling me because you merely _want_ to. Do you need my help? You'll have it, if you do."

Jim Kirk smiled widely, and Spock nodded respectfully. He understood his Captain's feelings for this woman more and more as she accepted the things they told her— and now she was offering help.

"No, Miss Keeler," Spock said, before Kirk could gather himself and decide how to answer. "There you are, for the first time in my experience with you, at least partially mistaken.

"We do not need your help, madam, not in the way that you mean. And it was desire that led to us telling you of our true natures— though the captain's desire was so strong that… perhaps it does qualify as 'need.' "

"I… all right," Edith said, looking down and blushing. "Then… why did you want to tell me all of this, Jim?"

"Spock's right, Edith," Jim said, sitting back down and taking her hands again. "You'll get used to that, after a while… I hope.

"But this… went beyond wanting. I needed to tell you because… because we came back here to repair a change in history, a change that…. It erased my ship, it made the interplanetary government I work to preserve and spread never have happened. If we hadn't been in the immediate vicinity of the… device that was used to travel back in time, I guess we might not have survived."

"All right, but what could that possibly have to do with me?" Edith asked. She smiled at Jim, and said, "And why would you _need_ to tell me?"

"I… Edith, I need to tell you the truth because… because I love you." Jim looked her in the eyes as he said the words— and he realized that he meant them even more strongly than he had known when Edith let out a happy little sound— and leaned forward to kiss him.

"I love you, too, Jim." She kissed him again, more briefly, then said, "Sorry, Mr. Spock— I hope we haven't scandalized you."

"You have not," Spock said. Then he said, "Captain, would you like me to continue?"

"No," Kirk said. "I'll do it, Spock.

"All right, Edith, let me tell you all of it. It may be… parts of it will be frightening. Parts of it will be hard to accept, even hurtful. But there are two things that I want you to remember as I explain the rest of this, Edith; first, I love you, and I will do everything I can to protect you, and second… you were right, Edith, really, truly right— but you were ahead of your time. You were right— at the wrong time."

"I… all right, I'll remember those things." She looked into Jim's eyes, and he saw that she understood how serious he'd become. "Tell me, Jim. Please, tell me all of it."

"Okay," Kirk said, taking a deep breath. "It starts on stardate 2259.31— wait, sorry. That's a new system, used mostly on starships. It was the twenty-third of April in 2259, and the _Enterprise_ was running a patrol in a sector of space that had been having trouble with Orion slavers when we detected some disturbances in the space-time of the area…."


	3. Chapter 3

Jim Kirk talked for an hour, slowly detailing how he and his first officer had come here, what they had done to try to locate the pivotal point that Leonard McCoy would change. Edith Keeler listened, fascinated— until Kirk said, "Then… Spock succeeded at finding out what Dr. McCoy changed, and I knew… I knew that I'd have to find some other way to fix the problem than just undoing what Bones did…."

He trailed off, shook his head as though to clear it, and opened his mouth again— but nothing came out.

"Jim, what's wrong?" Edith asked, untangling one of her hands from his and reaching out to tilt up his chin. "Please, Jim, perhaps I can help."

After a moment of watching Jim Kirk try to find the right words, Spock stood and said, "Miss Keeler, the captain is attempting to find a way to tell you something that he does not even like to think about— so please, Jim, allow me to do this for you."

Jim Kirk hesitated a long moment, then nodded, once, before standing, shifting his chair around beside Edith's and putting an arm around her waist.

"Miss Keeler—"

"I think it's time that you started calling me Edith, Mr. Spock."

"Thank you." He nodded gravely, and said, "In return, please feel free to call me simply 'Spock'— the 'mister' is not needed." At her puzzled look, Spock said, "Ah. It never came out in the captain's story.

"Edith, I am not human— or not entirely human. My mother was a human woman named Amanda Grayson, but my father was from the planet Vulcan. While I do have a last name, it is, to human thinking, extraordinarily long, and almost impossible to pronounce. So 'Spock' without the formality of 'mister' is all that I can offer in exchange for permission to use your first name."

"You're not… you look quite human to— oh!" She stared at the pointed ears that Spock had revealed by finally taking off his stocking cap, then nodded slowly. "They are… pleasing, Spock. They fit you, and now I understand your attachment to the hat.

"It's amazing that someone whose father came from another world should look so similar to we humans. Thank you for showing me the difference, Spock."

"You are quite welcome," Spock said formally. "My father's people look slightly more… non-human than I do, because of a more greenish cast to their skin— my blood, like my father's peoples', is green, but in a pure Vulcan, it is a much darker green, which gives many Vulcans a notable greenish cast to their skin."

"That's… amazing." Edith nodded and said, "Thank you— but perhaps you should tell me what Jim cannot make himself say, now, Spock."

"Indeed," Spock said. He folded his hands together behind his back and spoke. "Let me preface what I am about to tell you with the fact that, when I told Jim what I am about to tell you, he flatly refused to accept it— and that it was his… his caring for you, his determination that you not come to harm, that caused me to find what I hope to be a solution to the problem we face.

"That problem, Edith, is that you are the pivot-point on which the future turns."

"Me!" she gasped, looking incredulous. "But that's impossible, I'm just a— a missionary, trying to do good works, yes, but—"

"You are not 'just' anything, Edith Keeler." Spock's calm, flat statement stopped her speech more effectively than an impassioned denial could have. "You are a woman of remarkable intellect and more remarkable compassion. Your determination to do good for your fellow human beings is admirable in the extreme— and that you work so fervently for the future that you envision with startling clarity makes you a person of note. I find it unsurprising that Captain Kirk has come to feel so strongly about you, and I am not surprised that your passion for your chosen work would, if left unchecked, result in you changing the world."

For a moment, Edith Keeler only stared at Spock, and blushed. Then she said softly, "Thank you, Spock— but… 'if left unchecked,' what does that mean?"

"Edith, please try to remain calm, and know that Jim and I have a plan to make this work out for everyone," Spock said in a deliberately calm and measured tone. "But the simple fact is that what changed our future, erased the starship _Enterprise_ and her crew from existence… was our comrade Dr. McCoy saving your life sometime in the near future.

"In the original timeline, you were killed in a traffic accident— and by saving your life, Dr. McCoy changed that in a fashion that… can only be called negative."

"I… are you saying that I have to die to save your future?" Edith asked, her voice surprisingly calm, but with a hint of fear to it.

"That answer seemed the only one, but the captain refused to accept it, forced me to search for another answer— and I believe that I have found one." Spock closed his eyes for a moment, then said, "I will not lie to you, Edith; the plan we have is risky, very risky— but if it works… you will be able to see the future we come from, and you will be with the Captain."

"You— wait, no, I must know." Edith took a deep breath and leaned slightly against Jim. "What did I do? After your Dr. McCoy saved me, what did I do that so altered your future?"

"You worked for peace," Jim said from beside her. "You worked for peace, for an end to violence— and you were successful enough that… that the United States did not enter a coming conflict soon enough to prevent— you've heard of the Nazi party, right?" Edith nodded, and he went on. "The Nazis are going to start a war in nine years or so, attempting to take over all of Europe. It becomes, in the end, the Second World War. Your love of peace, your good works… they earned you a conference with the president of the United States, and your influence… America stayed out of the war for much longer— which allows the Nazis to complete some utterly horrifying weapons, and use them to take over the world.

"You have all the right ideas, Edith, the right principles— but you're literally ahead of your time. The world isn't ready just yet. That isn't your fault, and neither is what happened in this alternate future— you were just born too soon."

For a long moment, Edith simply stared back and forth between Kirk and Spock, then she spoke.

"But… you've told me, so I would never do such a thing— isn't that enough?" She looked pale and frightened. "Isn't that enough to restore things?"

"Perhaps," Spock said, nodding. "But Edith… I do not believe that you could stop working for peace anymore than Jim could accept that your death would restore things to the way they occurred before.

"As I said… we have a plan. It is risky, but I feel it has a real chance at success— and it will result in you returning to our time with us."

"I… this is all very… oh, of course I'll go with you, if I can! But… what can I do in your future?" Edith looked excited and worried as she added, "I want to work at… well, you've said your time isn't perfect. Is there any chance that I could work at making peace then? At helping your United Federation of Planets make things better for everyone?"

"There are almost certainly things that you could do," Spock said, nodding. "It is my opinion that your temperament would make you well-suited for the Federation's Diplomatic Corps, and there are many other careers where you could make a positive difference."

"All right," Edith said, squaring her shoulders. She glanced at Jim, smiled, and said, "I'll hold you to the loan of that book, Jim Kirk!

"Now— how does this work? How do you return to your own time and take me with you?"

Kirk couldn't tell her this part, and Spock knew it— so he did so, told her plainly what had to happen— but assured her that, if she came forward with them, the chances of McCoy being able to revive her before permanent harm could set in were "approaching certainty, on the close order of ninety-nine-point-four-seven-one percent."

"And the chances that I will, in fact, go forward with you?" she asked steadily.

"I am not sufficiently familiar with temporal displacement to be able to state odds," Spock said firmly. "As time travel in this fashion is new to us, I cannot say.

"However, Edith, I assure you that the captain is not used to failure— and he has made a habit out of doing things that were once thought to be impossible."

"With your help, Spock," Kirk said, and smiled. "Yours and the crew's, always."

Spock nodded acceptance of the compliment, and looked at the two humans. "I believe, at this point that I am what is colloquially known as 'a fifth wheel.' I believe that I shall—"

"You shall go to bed and get some sleep," Edith Keeler said. "After hearing… everything that I've heard tonight, I'm far too antsy to sleep. Jim, would you like to take a walk with me?"

"I'd love to," Kirk said, standing and pulling her to her feet. "She's right, Spock— get some sleep, I'll try not to wake you when I come in."

Spock agreed, bid the two good night, and watched out the window as they walked out of sight before taking their advice, and taking to his rest.

He woke when Jim Kirk came back sometime after midnight— but he didn't give any indication that he had woken, just listened as his friend readied himself for bed, then called upon his familiar meditation technique to block out the sound of his snores.


	4. Chapter 4

Five days later, Edith was pouring out coffee just after the Mission opened when she heard a voice tinged with a faint southern accent.

"Miss, that coffee smells… wonderful," said the voice from across the counter while Edith poured more cups full.

"Go on and take a cup, that's— oh!" She had looked up to see who was speaking, and saw a man in a uniform like the ones that Jim and Spock had shown her, and he matched Jim's description of Doctor McCoy. "My gosh, you look ill— take a cup and sit down, go on."

Dr. McCoy— it had to be him— looked wild-eyed and blotchy, symptoms of his accidental overdose, according to Spock, so Edith went around the counter quickly and tugged him to a seat. "Here, now— drink some coffee, it may help you steady down some. Are you feeling ill?"

"Dizzy," McCoy said, and rubbed at his eyes. "And so tired. But I can't rest— they're after me. The killers, they… they're chasing me still."

That answered the question of whether it would be safe to call Jim and Spock out of the back room to help her— he was still delusional, as they'd feared, and seeing either of them would probably only aggravate that. "Here, let me help you— I've got a room in the back, you can rest there, and they won't find you. I'm used to hiding people. Come on." She helped the doctor to his feet— he was a big man, solid with muscle, still. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Leonard," he mumbled as he leaned on Edith, let her guide him towards the back of the place. "Leonard McCoy. 'M a doctor."

"Well, Doctor McCoy, the room isn't far— and no one will find you." She managed to support his increasingly sagging form, got him to the back room where she kept a cot for those who came in ill. "Let's get you stretched out— you rest, and we'll talk more once you feel better."

McCoy's head didn't even reach the pillow before he was asleep, she didn't think. She checked his pulse, found it rapid— but she felt it slowing in just the few seconds her fingers were on his neck.

Once she was sure he was asleep and resting comfortably, Edith stood and went back to the kitchen, where she found Spock pouring coffee while Jim spooned oatmeal into dishes and set them up in the serving window. She waited until there was no one nearby, then motioned them both to the back of the kitchen.

"He's here!" she said, quietly, her hands fluttering nervously until Jim captured them in his own. "He was wearing a uniform like the ones you showed me, and he said his name was Leonard McCoy, and that he was a doctor!"

"Then we didn't miss him," Kirk said with an explosive sigh. "Where…?"

"He was still showing the symptoms you told me about, so I put him in the sickroom, left him to sleep," Edith explained. "You said it would only frighten him to see you until the drug wore off— do you know how long…?"

"If he is able to sleep, then it has begun wearing off already," Spock said, his voice as calm as ever. "If he sleeps for six or more hours, he should be free of its influence when he awakes. I believe, Edith, that if you judge him clear-headed when he wakes, then it will be safe for us to approach him."

"Oh, surely you don't want to rely on my judgment—" she began to protest.

"On the judgment of a woman who knew within hours of meeting us that we did not truly belong here?" Spock asked quietly. "Who understood, without more than casual acquaintance, that Jim Kirk is my friend and that I will be at his side so long as he needs me there?

"I trust your judgment, Edith Keeler— you are intelligent, observant and you have a keen ability to judge people. When you say that Leonard McCoy is recovered from his cordrazine overdose, then Jim and I will present ourselves to him— and begin the last phase of our mission here."

"I— yes, all right," Edith said, blushing some. "Thank you, Spock."

"Thanking me for observing the truth is… most illogical," Spock said, and he thought that Edith saw the humor in his eyes— amazing, it had taken the Captain some time to learn to see it, and he had the advantage of having been told by Spock's older-other self that it was there. She had to be partly telepathic, he hoped she would consent to testing at some point after they returned to the _Enterprise_. "The captain and I will take over as much of your work today as we can, that you may check on the doctor frequently."

They did so, and the work kept them distracted— which was a good thing. Jim Kirk had become nervous about what was to follow, and Spock, while he hid his own nervousness better, was not in much better shape. At this point, they were committed to their own plan for solving the problem they had come here to solve— and neither knew if it would really work.

Doctor McCoy was still sleeping soundly when Edith closed and locked the doors of the Twenty-first Street Mission after the last of the evening diners had left. She helped with the after-meal clean-up as much as Jim and Spock would let her (which wasn't much) then went again to check on McCoy as they began sweeping and mopping the floors of the dining room and kitchen.

McCoy was sitting up as she entered the room, and he looked infinitely better— his color was normal, or perhaps a bit pale, but the blotchiness was completely gone from his face, and his eyes clear and alert.

"Good evening," she said, a trifle nervously, but her voice genuinely warm. "How do you feel, Dr. McCoy?"

"I feel… a trifle confused," he admitted, swinging his legs off of the cot. "I… know we've met, Miss, but I don't recall your name."

"You didn't ask it this morning, but then, you were plainly quite ill," she replied. "I'm Edith Keeler. You told me your name when I asked this morning. Would you like a glass of water, doctor?"

"I would, yes," he said, his eyes roving around the room while she poured him a glass from the pitcher she'd left on the nightstand beside the cot. He took it, sipped, and said, "Thank you, Miss Keeler.

"This is going to sound like an odd question, ma'am, but… where am I?"

"That's a question with an answer that you might not believe," she answered slowly, and stepped back to the door. "At least not from me. But that's all right, there are some men who've been waiting to see you." She opened the door and called, "Gentlemen? Your friend is awake, and he's quite well."

She heard the sound of hurried footsteps, and she saw the relief in Dr. McCoy's face as Jim and Spock came in. Jim, ever exuberant, grabbed his friend in a bear hug, slapping his back and calling him "Bones" as they exchanged greetings. Spock simply watched, then nodded to McCoy and said, "Doctor McCoy, it is good to see you recovered."

"What the he— heck happened to me?" McCoy asked, giving Edith a quick glance as he aborted the profanity. "Where are we? Last thing I remember is putting away the hypospray after giving Sulu some cordrazine for that shock he took, then… I'm waking up here, and Miss Keeler, here, is familiar to me, even though I don't recall meeting her."

"You wouldn't recall it, Bones," Kirk said, a small grin on his face, "because you were still pretty much out of your mind from a cordrazine overdose. Big one."

McCoy's eyes widened, and he looked pale. "I didn't hurt anyone, did I? Damn it, I've been telling Starfleet Medical that those hyposprays need a safety switch of some kind, and they still haven't— oh. Sorry, Miss Keeler, forgive my language."

Edith smiled and waved off the apology as Jim said, "Well, Bones, Mr. Kyle in the transporter room will testify that you remember your Starfleet unarmed combat training, but you only knocked him out.

"Look, Bones— you need some clothes that won't stand out in this time period, then we can all go somewhere and get something to eat, then… well, there's a lot to talk about.

"Spock, take McCoy down to the donations in the basement, get him something to wear, will you? I'd like a word with Edith."

"Of course, Captain." Spock motioned the doctor to follow him, led him to the basement for period-appropriate clothing, and left his captain and Miss Keeler alone.

"Edith," Kirk said, once they were alone. "I, uh… look, you know that I love you. I've never… I've never really been in love before, and I don't want this to ever stop, so… well, I know that the timing is bad, or might be bad, but… but I don't want to go any farther down the path we're all on without you knowing how much you mean to me." Kirk took both her hands in his, caught her eyes, and asked, "Edith, will you marry me?"

For a moment, she couldn't answer— but Kirk didn't lose hope, because she smiled so widely that her answer could only go one way. "Yes! Yes, Jim Kirk, I'll marry you!"

They kissed, and were still kissing when Spock cleared his throat behind them some unknowable time later.

"Gentlemen," Kirk said, once they'd stopped kissing and turned to face his friends, "Allow me to introduce you to the future Mrs. Kirk."

McCoy's eyes widened almost comically, and Spock raised one eyebrow, before both men offered their congratulations.

They ate at a nearby diner, then went to the boardinghouse where Kirk, Spock and Edith were staying, and sat in the men's room to explain things to McCoy.

"We're in the past, aren't we?" McCoy asked as soon as they were all seated. "Earth's past, I mean? Early twentieth century?"

"Very astute, Doctor McCoy," Spock said with a small nod of approval. "We are, indeed, in the year 1930 on the planet Earth. To return to our own time and place… we will require your assistance."

They told him all of it, and McCoy listened— then he closed his eyes for a long moment, sighed, and said, "I'll do it, of course I will— but I'll need a few days to work out what's available, and what will work best— but only if you're _sure,_ Miss Keeler. Really, truly sure."

"I'm sure, Doctor, and please, call me Edith." She took a deep breath and said, "I won't be responsible for the deaths of millions, and I have seen with my own eyes the evidence that I could be. In addition, Spock feels— and was able to demonstrate to me— that my merely living beyond the original point of my death may in fact be enough to make changes in the future that could be… catastrophic.

"In fact, I am going to stay home until we are ready to attempt to go to your time— I've made arrangements for others to run the Mission."

"Actually," Kirk said, smiling a little, "I had hoped you'd go out with me tomorrow, just long enough to find a justice of the peace.

"Edith, I can't give you a ring, not here and now, but—"

She kissed him before he could say more, and McCoy chuckled to see it. "Jim, I never thought I'd see you get married— it's a big damned pleasure to be wrong."

"Believe me, Bones, marrying Edith is going to be a huge pleasure for me," Jim said, never taking his eyes off of hers. "So… what do you say, Edith?"

"Yes!" she said, and smiled. "And if you don't mind me supplying the rings, I can do that— my parents rings, they stated in their wills that I was to take them."

"I don't mind at all, why would I?" Jim asked, looking puzzled.

"I believe that Edith has not yet gotten used to the idea that we treat women as the equals of men in the time we came from, Captain," Spock suggested. "Which is quite understandable— she has not yet experienced it for herself."

"There will be time," Jim said, and added inwardly, _Please, let there be time!_

The next afternoon, with Spock standing as his best man and Leonard McCoy giving the bride away, James Tiberius Kirk took Edith Anne Keeler as his lawfully wedded wife— and he didn't mind a bit that their honeymoon was a simple night alone in her rooms.

It was the most wonderful night of his life, and he finally understood his brother Sam's early marriage, and why Sam always looked at him with something like pity when Jim turned up with a new girl on his arm every time the met— at least until Sam had out-migrated to Deneva.

_This is what I've been looking for all these years,_ Kirk thought as he looked at his sleeping wife just before falling asleep himself. Edith_ is what I was looking for._

_Please, god, don't take her away from me…_.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Three days after Jim Kirk married Edith Keeler-Kirk, Leonard McCoy lifted the hypodermic that, with the aid of a distraction from Jim Kirk, he'd managed to steal from a doctor's office, and frowned at it's cloudy yellow contents. If there were any other way to do this, if there were any other way to be sure that the future didn't turn horribly wrong, he'd have refused to help with this mad scheme.

Well… no, he probably wouldn't have. Seeing Jim Kirk happy, obviously deeply in love and practically radiating a mixture of hope and carefully-shielded fear, would probably have convinced him. That, or the way Edith Keeler looked when she smiled at her husband.

_I always was a soft touch,_ McCoy thought as he looked at the obviously-nervous-but-trying-to-be-strong Edith Keeler. He smiled at her, nodded, and said, "This will sting a bit when I inject you, Edith— but you won't feel any pain after that, and I know exactly how to reverse the effects and revive you once we're on the _Enterprise_. Now, before I inject you, I want you to breathe as deeply and rapidly as you can for at least a minute— let's get all the oxygen we can into your system before we start, that gives me a little safety margin to work with."

"All right, Leonard," Edith said, and she caught his free hand in one of hers for a moment. "Thank you. I know that this… goes against your character, your beliefs, even your oaths. So thank you, Leonard, for trying to keep Jim and I together."

"You're welcome," he said, and blinked several times. Stupid eyes, trying to tear over at such a critical moment. "Now— deep, rapid breaths, Edith."

"Wait a second," Jim Kirk said, and pulled off the gold over-tunic of the uniform he'd donned again in preparation for their trip home. He handed it to Edith, said, "Put this on over your blouse, Edith— it belongs in my time, so maybe… well, please, put it on?"

"Of course, Jim," she said, and did so, let him adjust it, saw him force a smile over his fear as he did so. "Leonard, Spock… could we have just a moment, please?"

"Of course," McCoy said, and he and Spock stepped away from the place where she sat next to Jim, who was going to pick her up and hold her as soon as she passed out.

Once they had relative privacy, Edith looked up at her husband and said, "It will be all right, Jim. Truly, it will. I feel it."

Jim managed a smile and said, "Well, given that even Spock takes your 'feelings' seriously, that does help.

"Edith… I need you to know that the last three days have been the best days of my entire life. I love you, Mrs. Kirk."

"And I love you, Mi— Captain Kirk. I think I should get used to hearing it— and saying it does feel rather right." She smiled. "So, Captain-husband Kirk, kiss me for luck, then let's get this done— I want to see your ship, and I want to borrow that novel that you promised to loan me."

Kirk actually chuckled as she reminded him of his promise to loan her a book, and kissed her. He just held her for a long moment afterwards, then said, "Okay. Have a seat, Mrs. Kirk. Deep, rapid breaths, just like the doctor ordered.

"Bones… we're ready."

McCoy came over, knelt next to Edith Kirk, pushed up the right sleeve of Jim's uniform tunic and swabbed her arm with rubbing alcohol. "Thankfully, Starfleet makes us take courses in primitive medicine," he said as he prepared to inject his friend's new wife. "Otherwise I probably wouldn't know how to use one of these things.

"Edith, when you begin to feel a little dizzy, raise your left hand, that'll let me know that you've gotten as much oxygen into your blood as we can reasonably expect."

Edith nodded, smiled a little, though her eyes were dark with… not fear, but worry, and kept breathing deeply and rapidly. Finally, after more than a minute, she raised her left hand, and McCoy injected her with the drug mixture he'd come up with that would end her life quickly, painlessly— and above all, reversibly.

"I'll see you in three hundred years or so, gentlemen," Edith said, smiling at them all— then turning that smile up to maximum as she looked at her husband.

Her eyes widened a little as he injected her, then, almost immediately, began to look unfocused. A smile of relaxation settled on her face, her eyes closed, and she slumped in her chair. McCoy set down the hypodermic as Jim swiftly picked her up, cradled her to him, and closed his eyes, his lips moving silently in prayer.

McCoy joined in that prayer, waited with his friend, and Spock, unwilling to show the emotions he felt, concentrated on willing things to happen as he had surmised, willing Edith Kirk's body to accompany them back to the year 2259.

Edith Kirk let out a long breath… and did not inhale again. After a long, painfully slow pair of minutes, whatever forces were governing this trip into the past decided that things had been set right— and there came a sudden feeling as of the floor tilting beneath the three men. Jim Kirk felt it more, since he had the burden of his wife's weight in addition to his own, and he took a single step—

And found himself stepping through mists, onto dirt, saw Scotty, Uhura, Penitt and Morgan standing, staring with their mouths open.

He looked down and saw Edith in his arms, and a huge weight left him, even as his heart lurched in consternation, and he turned towards the Guardian of Forever in time to see Spock and McCoy step out of the mists at the center of the Guardian. Even as Scotty was spluttering in surprise he managed to say, "Captain, what happened? Who's the lass? You—"

McCoy stepped forward, snatched the open communicator out of Uhura's hand, snapped "Jim, give her to me!" and took the limp, unbreathing form of Edith from his arms, and said, "_Enterprise_, McCoy— emergency medical transport, myself and the person I'm carrying, directly to sick bay, energize!"

Less than five seconds later, McCoy and Edith disappeared— and the Guardian of Forever spoke.

"All has been restored to as it should have been. The woman will be a part of this time, as you had hoped, James Kirk.

"Many more journeys such as the one you have taken are possible. Let me be your guide."

Jim Kirk closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath, then said, "Mr. Spock, assemble a team for historical research via the Guardian at your convenience. Scotty, Uhura— I need to get up to the _Enterprise_.

"Guardian… we'll be back, but right now I need to be sure that my wife is all right."

While Scotty and Uhura were looking at each other and saying, "Wife!" and the two security men were carefully maintaining straight faces, Kirk flipped open his communicator and said, "_Enterprise_, this is Kirk. Six to beam up."

Jim Kirk was moving as soon as he had fully materialized, and Spock was right behind him. They moved to sick bay in silence, and when they stepped in, Jim saw Edith sitting up in a treatment bed while Bones looked at her vitals on display above the bed with a small, self-satisfied grin on his face. Her eyes were open, and as she looked sharply over at the unfamiliar sound of the ship's automatic doors, she saw Jim and Spock come in— and smiled radiantly.

"It worked! Oh, Jim, it really worked, I'm _here!"_

Jim Kirk's voice failed him, so he simply stepped over to the side of the bed, placed his hand on his wife's cheek, and kissed her, long and tenderly.

After the kiss, he leaned his forehead against hers and said, "You're here. I love you."

"I love you, too." She tilted her head and kissed him again, then pulled back and said, "Leonard, _thank you!_ You— I can never, ever thank you enough!"

"You're more than welcome," McCoy responded, and grinned. "Believe me, it's worth it to see you and Jim grinning like a couple of teenagers."

"Bones… I can't promote you to admiral, or I would," Kirk said, and he stepped over and hugged the doctor, and never mind the other sick bay staff who were standing around and openly watching this little drama. "Thank you."

"Aw, forget it, Jim. All part of the service."

"Leonard, how long before I may get up? I feel… marvelous, honestly." Edith took a deep breath and said, "I want to see everything— the ship, the— the planet that the machine, the Guardian, is on… all of it."

"You can get up now," McCoy said with a nod. "Your system's been cleaned of the drug, your vitals are fine across the board, and you were a healthy young woman to start with.

"I'll want to see you tomorrow, after breakfast, and if you feel any sort of ill or uncomfortable between now and then, you tell Jim, and he'll get you down here right away."

Edith bounced off of the bed, turned to Jim and said, "Show me your ship, Jim? Please?"

Jim Kirk took his wife's hand and said, "Let's start with the hangar deck and work our way to the bridge— best for last, I think."

With that, the two of them left sick bay hand-in-hand.

After a long moment, Nurse Christine Chapel said, "Doctor… who was that woman?"

"That," Leonard McCoy said with a smile that bordered on being a smirk, "was Edith Kirk— the captain's wife."

Then he laughed at the shocked expression on her face, and headed for his office as Spock headed off to pick his team for studying the Guardian of Forever.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

_Captain's log, stardate 2259.43— The_ Enterprise _is currently in orbit above what has become, in the common parlance of the crew, "the Guardian Planet," and things progress quite well in our study of the gaps in the histories in the various member planets of the Federation._

_My initial report to Starfleet— heavily encoded and sent via a subspace beacon that Mr. Scott jury-rigged a better warp engine for, thus ensuring that the report would be sent from a location nowhere near that of the Guardian Planet itself— resulted in… quite a lot of excitement. The Federation sent a ship out here, the science and research specific vessel_ UFPS DaVinci, _and they've been having, from my perspective, a hell of a good time down there._

_The_ DaVinci _also brought along an old friend— Admiral Christopher Pike, who came along to look things over… and to give me a nice, gentle reprimand. Apparently, he had a bit of a fight on his hands to make it a gentle one…_.

"Admiral Pike, welcome aboard," Jim Kirk said, and he stepped forward to shake the admiral's offered hand. "It's good to see you, sir. You know Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy, of course, and the gentleman at the transporter controls is my Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott."

"Gentlemen, Commander Scott," Pike said with brief handshakes all around. "Mr. Scott, Admiral Jasper of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers said to tell you that your warp booster on the subspace beacon the _Enterprise_ sent off to report on the Guardian Planet is going into mass production for all Starfleet vessels, as it was approximately four hundred and thirty percent more efficient than the one they're currently using."

"Thank you, sir," Scotty said, trying to hide his grin for propriety's sake. "I do try to be useful."

"You've succeeded," the Admiral said, nodding. He turned to Kirk and said, "Jim, can we speak alone for a few minutes?"

"Of course, Admiral," Kirk said, and the others, accepting the admiral's request as an order, left the transporter room ahead of them. Kirk led the way out into the hall, and down to the nearest conference room. Once they were inside and the door had closed, Kirk looked at Admiral Pike and asked, "Am I in trouble again, sir?"

"Only almost," Pike said, sitting down and waving Kirk to a chair with a casualness that made Kirk relax quite a bit. "You know, Jim, you have a way of doing things that, while pretty damned impressive, somehow manages to piss off the old fogeys in Command."

"Aren't you one of those old fogeys, Admiral?" Kirk asked, an innocent look trying to hang itself on his face.

"No, I still remember the hazards of command well enough to be just a middle-aged fogey," Pike said, utterly deadpan— and Kirk snorted laughter. "Jim, bringing Edith Keeler— Edith Kirk, sorry— forward from the past, that was… will you give me that it was probably not the most probable solution for making Command happy?"

"I'll give you that, sir," Kirk said, with a nod— but his eyes blazed as he added, "But it was the _only_ solution I could accept, Admiral."

"I believe you, Jim," Pike said, holding up a hand to placate the younger man. "But Admirals Keller and Delmaris, they wanted to charge you with a violation of the Prime Directive."

Jim Kirk's mouth fell open and he said, completely without thought, "You're shitting me!"

Pike snorted laughter and said, "Believe it or not, Captain, that's _exactly_ what I said when Admiral Keller first put it out there.

"In no way did you violate the Prime Directive— you didn't interfere with the development of a pre-warp culture in any other sense than putting it back on its normal course— and that you brought a former native of that time forward is not a violation of the Directive.

"Delmaris tried to claim that you had violated the part referring to 'no references to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations,' but I pointed out that your references to these things were made to a woman who was destined to die, and that any lawyer could beat the charges— if they were stupid enough to charge a man who's still the darling of the media, and a hero to much of the Federation."

For a moment Kirk just sat and stared. Then he shook himself and said, "Admiral… thanks. If they'd actually gotten so far as leveling the charges at me—"

"You'd have blown up in their faces, called them every name in the book, invented a couple of new books worth of names, and given them an excuse to toss you out of Starfleet."

Pike grinned as Kirk had the decency to blush and say, "Well… yeah, probably. Thanks, sir."

"You learn to control your temper better, and we'll call it even," Pike said, and he stood. "So… come on, Jim, introduce me to the Missus. Anybody who can tame 'Sensor Lock' Kirk is a woman to be admired and respected…."

Kirk winced at the old nickname, and said hopefully, "If I promise to work on that whole temper thing… will you promise never to tell Edith about that nickname?"

"Deal," Pike said, and followed Kirk off to his quarters.

Edith Kirk was very pleased to meet the man who had seen Jim Kirk's potential, and she had soon charmed Admiral Pike so completely that he insisted that Jim call him "Chris" in the privacy of his quarters— so that Edith would, too.

Talk turned to Edith's adjustment to what was, to her, the future, and she smiled as she said, "I love it here, Chris. Things are not perfect, I know that— but I have read the history that is taught to the children of the Federation, and I am very impressed by the… the honesty I see in that history. You admit to your ancestor's mistakes, admit to the mistakes of your own generation— and plainly try to do better. You strive to make peace, even with those you could easily— or so it appears to me— conquer. The Prime Directive of Starfleet, it's a wonderful attempt at preventing disaster, though I believe that there may be times when it should be… not violated, but perhaps gently circumvented?"

"Good grief," Pike said with an attempt at a sour look that failed because of his smile. "You and Jim really _were_ made for each other."

They all laughed, and Pike asked what Edith intended to do with herself.

"Well, right now, I am quite content to simply learn all I can about your time, your Federation, Starfleet, the member planets and races… but I think that, once I have satisfied the Elephant's Child at least in part— oh, I'm sorry, that's a term for curiosity that was popularized by Rudyard Kipling, I suppose he's not required reading anymore— once I've satisfied my curiosity, I think I may wish to actually work for the United Federation of Planets in some capacity. Perhaps as a school teacher for diplomat's children, or children on scientific stations, or, if I have the aptitude, I might like to learn medicine."

"I still think you should listen to Spock, Edith," Kirk said, smiling at her. "He does know something on the subject, you know."

"What does Spock think you should do?" Pike asked.

"Spock has gotten it into his head," Edith said with a gentle glare at her husband and a faint blush, "that I would be an excellent diplomat. I don't think—"

"I've known Mr. Spock for a long time, Edith," Chris Pike interrupted, nodding thoughtfully. "And I believe in his judgment. In this particular case, I understand his beliefs completely— you put people at their ease without even thinking about it, and that's a wonderful trait for a diplomat to have.

"Not to mention that it would give you a perfect excuse to satisfy your curiosity about other cultures, languages… I think it would be a good idea for you to consider, once you've had some more time to adjust to our time."

"I— well, I suppose I could at least look into what I would have to learn, that couldn't hurt," Edith said, sounding cautiously interested.

"I'll tell you what," Pike said, leaning forward. "The _Enterprise's_ computers have the standard curriculum for the schools on Earth, through high school. You work your way through what you need to for that— I can tell you right now, just from listening to you talk, that you're going to be able to skip all the courses in Federation Standard.

"Once you've caught up— and if you have troubles, you have a ship full of possible tutors— then you take a practice run at the Federation Service exam, and it'll tell you what you're suited for.

"And I'll bet you a hundred credits against you cooking dinner again that 'diplomat' will be on the list of possible careers."

Edith, her eyes wide with surprise at Pike's interest and calm assurance, said, "I— well, if you really think that's a good idea, I mean… well, Jim's got me working on the standard education already, and the only area that is giving me any real difficulty is the math and the physics, but I suppose I could ask for help… do you really think I could pass that test? It sounds like the old Civil Service exam, I suppose, and that makes sense…."

"Edith, I know Jim Kirk," Pike said, his voice serious, but his eyes sparkling. "The man who rescued me from enemy hands, who saved the Earth from destruction at the hands of a technologically superior foe?

"He's not going to fall head over heels in love (as he so obviously is with you) with any woman who isn't capable of doing pretty much whatever she sets her mind to. A woman like that would bore him silly inside of a day— so I _know_ that you can do it."

Edith Kirk blinked— then smiled her best smile at the admiral and said, "Very well then, Admiral Pike— I shall accept your bet." She stood to shake his hand, then bounced up on her toes and kissed his cheek, which surprised him— but visibly pleased him, as well. "Jim, it's no wonder at all that this man talked you into joining Starfleet. I personally think he could talk Franklin Roosevelt into joining the Republican party!"

Pike cocked his head in open puzzlement as Edith and her husband both laughed hard at that.

Three days later, Pike left the system aboard the UFPS _Defiant,_ which passed through the system to resupply the _DaVinci_ and to pick up the Admiral. Edith Kirk insisted on going to the transporter room to see him off, and Christopher Pike didn't mind at all.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Another week passed uneventfully, and Jim Kirk didn't mind (for the first time in his life) the relative inactivity of simply waiting for Spock's carefully chosen team to finish the analysis of the Guardian that they had started. He just enjoyed his off time with his wife, watching her delight in learning more and more about the time she lived in now, and their shared delight in each other.

He'd just left their quarters on the eighth day since Admiral Pike had departed, headed for his shift on the bridge, when the ship suddenly rocked, the gravity generators and inertial dampeners hiccupped, and he found himself leaning against the wall ten feet from his own door as the red alert klaxons started sounding, and the communications officer on watch— not Uhura, she started when Kirk did, and he was a little early yet— said, "Red alert! All hands to battle stations! Captain Kirk to the Bridge!"

Jim went to his own quarters, called a frightened-looking Edith out, and pulled her with him to the turbolift. "It'll be okay, Edith— this is the best crew in space, they'll get us through this. Sick bay," he told the lift. When the door opened, he said, "Right down the hall, first door on the left— you'll be safest there, it's deep in the saucer section. I have to go, I love you!"

Edith had time to see Kirk smile as she told him she loved him, too, then the turbolift doors closed on him, and she went to sick bay to wait until… whatever was happening was over.

Jim Kirk hit the bridge moving fast, and Spock, who'd apparently beat him by some seconds (or been here all along) cleared the center seat as Kirk headed for it. "Situation?" Kirk asked as he sat down.

"We have been fired upon by a vessel that we cannot see or otherwise detect, Captain," Spock informed him, his voice steady and calm. "The _DaVinci_ was fired on first, and badly damaged— there has been no communication from that ship since they were hit, and several emergency evacuation capsules have launched. When the _Enterprise_ attempted to move towards the capsules, we were fired upon, took a hit in the secondary hull section, which did significant damage to the main sensor array."

"Okay, invisible enemy, went for our sensors— Romulans, then," Kirk said, nodding. "Shields?"

"Operating at full capacity except near the front of the secondary hull, where the initial hit landed," Spock assured his captain. "There, the shields are at only forty percent, though engineering has started working on the issue already."

"Helm, break orbit, come about and get our nose towards the debris from the _DaVinci_." Kirk smiled grimly. "Can't be invisible when you're knocking debris aside, we know they aren't back there.

"Prepare all phasers and photon torpedoes, tell the crews to fire at any beam or torpedo source they manage to spot. Uhura?"

"Yes, Captain?" his head of communications said, her voice calm— she'd arrived and relieved the officer at her station while Spock had been briefing him.

"See if you can find them by finding their communications— they have to be calling home about this one." Kirk leaned forward, watched the main screen as the _Enterprise_ came around and headed towards the wreckage of the _DaVinci_— and he winced. The enemy's one shot at the science vessel had pretty much destroyed her, hit at the rear of the saucer section on the impulse engines. The explosion of the engines had torn the smaller vessel to pieces, and it looked like the engineering section and the warp nacelles were going to hit the planet. "Dammit— Spock, did the _DaVinci's_ core eject?"

"It did, Captain, and is currently headed away from the planet on a course that is no threat to us or the teams on the surface. The wreckage of the _DaVinci_'s engineering section will hit… approximately fifteen hundred miles from the Guardian, so there is no threat there, either."

"Good enough," Kirk said, leaning forward. "Sensor repairs?"

"Mister Scott says that the damage to the primary sensor array cannot be repaired in combat," Spock said flatly. "Sensors are at less than twenty percent, Captain— but I am scanning for the attacker's vessel."

"Thank you, Mr. Spock," Kirk said. He glanced at Sulu at the helm and said, "Sulu, take us in closer— in fact… get the remainder of the _DaVinci_'s saucer between us and where the attackers initial shot came from— plus thirty degrees relative up."

"Aye, Captain." Sulu's hands moved swiftly and surely on the helm, and the _Enterprise_ dipped slightly to go under the remains of the other ship's saucer. "And… there, holding position."

"Good, good." Kirk sat back slightly and said, "Mr. Spock, if you'll focus the remaining sensors above us as best you can, I think you might have some chance of spotting the enemy."

"Yes, Captain," Spock said, and though he would never have asked it, Kirk could hear the unsaid "why there?" in his tone.

"Romulans are crafty and subtle, Mr. Spock," Kirk said, a hard grin on his face, "but with a few exceptions, they're also a bunch of xenophobic, self-centered, superior, condescending bastards— and they look down on all other races, which means that a ridiculous percentage of the time?

"They come in from above, because they can't stand to be beneath a bunch of Federation weaklings."

"Understood, Captain," Spock said, and he turned all of his attention to his sensor readings. "Nothing as yet, sir…."

"Captain, I have an outgoing communication on the frequencies commonly used by the Romulan Star Empire," Uhura said, her voice level, her hands flying across her board. "Recording and jamming, sir."

"Took the words right out of my mouth, Uhura," Kirk said. "Any chance you can get us a bearing for weapons?"

"Working," the lieutenant said, her voice steady. "It's tricky, with the main sensors damaged, but I think… I have it, transmitting to helm!"

"Sulu, fire phasers," Kirk said— and felt the thrum of his ship as her weapons fired at the location Uhura had provided. A moment later, the phasers hit something, something shielded, producing a notable lightshow— and Jim Kirk's grin turned feral as he said, "Target that corona and fire photon torpedoes!"

The photon torpedo launchers thumped somewhere below his feet, and Jim Kirk watched as the torpedoes exploded against the middle of the hull on a Romulan bird of prey, knocked the ship back and up, and, to all appearances, shorted out its cloaking device, as well as visibly hulling it. The enemy ship immediately heeled over and began trying to flee, but it didn't seem to be responding well to its helm or making much in the way of speed.

"Sulu, get us close enough to them that they won't want to use that plasma weapon of theirs, if this ship has one," Kirk said, his eyes on the ship. "Uhura, hail them, if there's a response give me a channel to them."

"Aye, Captain," the two crew members said, and set to work at fulfilling his orders.

Sulu got them into position practically on top of the bird of prey in a single burst of impulse power, and matched speeds with the other vessel easily. A moment later, Uhura said, "They're not responding, Captain."

"Open channel, please, Lieutenant."

A moment later, Uhura said, "Hailing frequencies open, sir."

"Attention, Romulan vessel. This is Captain James T. Kirk of the _UFPS Enterprise_. You have fired up on us from ambush, which we consider an act of war— on top of the fact that you are trespassing in Federation space. You will stand down now, shut down all weapons and defensive systems— or you will be destroyed and your government held accountable for your actions."

For a long moment, there was no answer— then Spock said in a very urgent voice, "Captain, power surge from the Romulan ship!"

"Sulu, peel off!" Kirk snapped, and the helmsman's hands flew across his controls, even as Kirk used the overrides in his command chair to shunt all available auxiliary power to the deflector shields on the top and front of the _Enterprise's_ saucer section.

Sulu was flying back and down at a speed that Kirk would have considered reckless under any circumstances other than the ones they were in now— and when the Romulan ship disappeared in a huge flash of light and scattering of debris, the _Enterprise_ was rocked badly— but her shields held, and Kirk let out a sigh of relief.

"Mr. Sulu, that was some excellent flying." Kirk took a deep breath and let it out. "Mister Chekov, please see if you can determine from the Romulan vessel's exhaust trail how long they were here."

"Already vorking, Keptin." The young Russian's hands were moving with a speed that almost seemed ridiculous, but then, he had graduated Starfleet Academy at the age of seventeen, so he was a certified super-genius. "Vith the sensors being damaged I cannot promise anything, sir, but I vill try my best."

"That's all I ask." Kirk spun around to face the science and communications stations and asked, "How bad is the damage, Mr. Spock?"

"Comparatively minor, Captain," Spock said, his voice sounding almost pleased. "The Romulans only fired the one volley at us, and Mr. Sulu's skill at the helm, coupled with your speed at putting auxiliary power where it would do the most good, saved us from more than what Mr. Scott calls 'a few nicks and dings' when they self-destructed. According to Mr. Scott, he will have to replace the main sensor array, but expects to have that done within four hours.

"Sick bay reports minor casualties, no fatalities, only one member of the crew injured seriously enough to require extensive surgery, and Dr. McCoy reports that Ensign Ramirez will recover fully, though she will not be speaking above a whisper for some time— she entered the area of a pressure leak caused by the initial Romulan salvo to rescue a fellow crew member whose leg was broken, and inhaled some fire protection foam."

"Note that in the ship's log, and start the paperwork for a commendation for her," Kirk said. "In fact, make it commendation from her commanding officer— and a recommendation for the Starfleet Medal of Commendation. What she did took major guts.

"For now, begin rescue operations for the personnel from the _DaVinci_.

"Uhura, did you capture the attempted transmission from the Romulan vessel?"

"I did sir," Uhura said, her voice angry. "Unfortunately, sir, the Romulans were pretty clever— they were speaking in Klingon, and their voices… well, sir, I don't believe for a second that any Klingon who got his hands on a working Romulan cloaking device would do anything other than head for Klingon space at maximum warp, but they had some damned good simulator programs running. I can't prove that those were Romulan voices speaking Klingon and being run through a speech modification program. I know it— but I can't prove it."

"Damn," Kirk said, and shook his head. "All right, Lieutenant— go over it until you're satisfied that there's nothing to be learned, then get me the gist of what was said.

"Oh, and Uhura?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You'll be getting a commendation yourself, Lieutenant— without you getting us a targeting point, we could have been in deep trouble. Well done— and on a personal note, thanks. I like being alive, it's kind of addictive." He grinned her way, then looked around and said to Spock, "I'm going to run down to sick bay, make sure the injured know that I know they were hurt, and let Edith know I'm okay— she's never been through this sort of thing before.

"Spock, I don't suppose Mr. Scott thought to make extras of his warp booster for subspace beacons, did he?"

"Actually, Captain, I asked him to do so, and he provided three additional boosters." Spock looked almost smug for a moment, but only almost. "He said he did not wish to deplete engineering stores any more that that, and I felt that three would be sufficient even for a… potentially delicate task such as our current mission."

"Excellent work on both your parts." Kirk looked thoughtful, then said, "Once rescue of the _DaVinci_ survivors is complete, send a beacon off on one of those booster with the logs to date, and a request for another science vessel, as well as transport home for any of the _DaVinci_ personnel who need medical leave… and for the bodies of any of the _DaVinci's_ fallen that we can recover.

"You have the conn, Mr. Spock."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Kirk found sick bay only slightly chaotic, which was to be expected after a battle, and found his wife trailing around after Doctor Hathaway, the second in command of the ship's medical department, using a PADD to access patient records for the doctor and reading the parts she asked for aloud.

Kirk stood and watched a moment, then felt a presence at his elbow, heard Bones say, "Jim, I could make a nurse of her in no time, a surgical nurse in a year. She kept her head and stayed out of the way, then volunteered her services for 'anything the untrained can help with' as soon as we calmed down. Add in that she kept a crewman who managed to get here on his own from bleeding to death with direct pressure until a nurse could get to him, and kept him calm while she did it?

"Jim, can we go back to her time again? I'd like to see if I can find a wife like her."

"There aren't any more like her," Jim Kirk said, his smile widening to the point where his cheeks burned a little. "I don't think the universe could handle two of her, Bones."

"You may be right," McCoy said, chuckling a little. Then he called, "Edith? I think we can spare you for a couple of minutes to let your husband assure himself that you're all right."

Edith turned, smiled, handed Dr. Hathaway the PADD, and came over to hug Jim tightly for a moment. "My first space battle," she said against his chest. "Doctors McCoy and Hathaway both tell me that it was very short and very mild— but it seemed rather like forever and quite unnerving on my end."

"It was short, mild— and given that no one onboard the _Enterprise_ died, I'd prefer it if they all were like that." McCoy shook his head in resignation. "Still— no permanent harm to any of the crew this time, I'll take that."

"Bones, is Ramirez up to a short visit from her CO?" Jim asked. He smiled a little, and said, "I'd like to thank her for going after her fellow crewman, and tell her that she can expect a commendation for it. And while I won't tell her about this yet, in case some idiot at Starfleet disagrees with me, I've put her up for the Starfleet Medal of Commendation, as well. Going into an area suffering rapid decompression and fire? Not the actions of a coward, which, okay, on this ship, that's to be expected— but it's also to be _recognized_."

"She's okay, and I'm pretty sure she's awake," McCoy said with a smile. "She's back in the port-aft corner, Jim."

Ramirez was indeed awake, and started to try to hop out of bed to stand to attention when Kirk came around the partition and into her little section of sick bay, but he got "At ease, Ensign," out before she could do more than sit up.

He spoke to Elena Ramirez for five minutes or so, made sure that she knew exactly how proud he was to have her on his crew, told her up front about her commendation from him, since that was guaranteed, and finished with, "You did the right thing the right way, Ensign Ramirez— and I am going to remember that when your review for promotion comes up in… wow, just over a month, now.

"Also, Mr. Chekov is due for a leave, soon. I think it might do you some good to get some navigation time in under my observation— it'll make it easier to decide on that promotion. So if you won't mind working alpha shift for a while instead of— you're on delta, now?"

"Yes, sir, I am," Ramirez said, her voice a harsh whisper, but her eyes alight with delight. "I won't mind moving to alpha for a while, not at all, Captain."

"Good," he said, nodding. "And when it's time to switch back… well, we may move your shift, depending, and we'll make the move as easy as possible."

"Thank you, Captain."

"You earned it, Elena." Kirk shook her hand, then excused himself to return to the bridge.

The rescue operation for the survivors from the _DaVinci_ was complete, and the head of ship's stores (who was also in charge of housing) had begun finding places for them on the ship, putting the few officers who had survived into the ship's quest quarters, and improvising quarters for the enlisted crew down on the planet by using the emergency shelters that the ship carried.

Kirk spoke to all of the survivors, did what he could to help them deal with the shock and loss of their ship being destroyed, and made sure that they all knew that the ship's medical officers were available if they needed to talk to a professional.

It was a week before a vessel arrived to replace the _DaVinci,_ though Starfleet got the survivors out aboard the _UFPS Farragut_ two days before that. Two of the scientists from the _DaVinci_ stayed, but only two— most went back to Earth for reassignment with their shipmates. But Doctor Anton Lem, a temporal physicist, and Doctor Thomas Vandermeer, a historian specializing in the historical period that enclosed the Eugenics Wars both stayed, unwilling to interrupt what they considered the chance of a lifetime.

The _UFPS Marie Curie_ brought a fresh group of scientists— and a surprise for Jim Kirk that pleased him no end.

Kirk had gone down to the planet to meet with the new scientists, and he was surprised when he heard a voice from behind him say, "Oh, look at this— they're letting Starfleet's answer to Don Juan captain a starship. Man, they must have been desperate— sir!"

Jim Kirk turned to see Gary Mitchell, one of the few friends he'd made at Starfleet Academy, standing behind him and grinning.

"Man, am I ever going to lose that reputation?" Kirk said, stepping forward to shake his old friend's hand— and stopping when Mitchell snapped to attention and saluted.

"Captain, Lieutenant Junior Grade Gary Mitchell requests permission to shake the captain's hand, sir!" Mitchell snapped, fighting a grin as he did so.

"I should just leave you to hold that salute until you die of exposure, Gary," Kirk said— but he returned the salute, then said, "Permission granted, you poser!"

Shaking hands turned into a back-thumping hug, and after they separated, Mitchell said, "It's good to see you Jim— I thought I'd better come along and check you out for myself— there are some wild rumors flying around Starfleet, you won't believe them."

"Oh, hell, what now?" Kirk sighed, rolling his eyes. "Am I supposed to have started a war with the Klingons all by myself? Violated the Prime Directive in new and creative ways? Gone prospecting for dilithium with ship's phasers?"

"No," Mitchell said, and he snorted laughter as he said, "You're supposed to have— get this— gotten _married,_ Jim!" Mitchell laughed aloud, shook his head and said, "I mean, talk about completely impossible to believe bullsh— wait, why aren't you laughing, Jim?"

In answer, Jim Kirk simply held up his left hand— and let his friend see the simple gold band that rested there.

For a long moment, Gary Mitchell only stared back and forth between Kirk's wedding ring and his face before he said, "Holy— you? Really?"

"Me." Kirk smiled a little, and said, "Really."

Gary Mitchell shook himself once, then said, "Okay, so when do I meet her? And do I need a blindfold? Or maybe just glare-protection goggles?"

"What the hell are you talking about, you loon?" Kirk snorted laughter, then looked sideways at his old friend. "Blindfold?"

"Oh, come on!" Mitchell said, a grin spreading across his face. "The woman who tamed 'Sensor Lock' Kirk has to be so beautiful that merely _mortal_ eyes can't take the strain!"

Kirk thumped Mitchell on the shoulder and said, "Okay, knock it off. Edith knows I used to have a… a wandering eye, but she's never heard that nickname, and I'd rather she never did, if you take my meaning, _Lieutenant Junior Grade_ Mitchell."

"Understood, Captain." Mitchell grinned. "Seriously, Jim— I'm happy for you. Wish I could've been there, but I understand that it's not always possible to get your friends to your wedding.

"Now— when can I meet her?"

"When are you off shift?" Kirk asked, walking towards the cluster of buildings that were the Federation's scientific outpost here. "I'll beam you up, introduce you— she's heard a lot about you, I told her about my best friend in the Academy, of course."

They made the arrangements, and Gary Mitchell did get along with Edith Kirk, which relieved Jim no end.

The next day, when Kirk came back to his quarters from his shift on the bridge— only an hour late, which was something that had begun with his moving Edith into his quarters, before that he'd often stayed two or three hours past the end of his shift— he found Edith deep in conversation with Nyota Uhura. He stopped to kiss Edith, then said, "Afternoon, Nyota," to let her know she didn't need to leave or switch to professional mode, and went to change out of his uniform. His quarters were warmer than the bridge, and the tunic could get hot.

When he came back out, Nyota was talking animatedly about some of the things that the scientific teams on the planet had discovered about the Guardian, and Edith was listening raptly.

"…and when Dr. Lem mentioned that the temporal disturbances around the planet made for a rough ride in orbit, at least until they were charted, the Guardian actually apologized— and then it made them go away completely, in less than five minutes," Uhura said, smiling. "Dr. Lem was amazed, and then he started asking the Guardian questions about what it could do, but I got lost in about a minute— I don't speak temporal physicist, I guess."

"It does sound fascinating, though," Edith sighed. "I can imagine it, the stone lighting up, especially at night."

"Wait, you've never— no, of course not, I'm sorry," Uhura said. She looked chagrined as she added, "I forgot that you were unconscious when you came back with the captain, the doctor and Spock." She smiled at Edith and said, "Also, I forget that I haven't known you my whole life— heck, if I weren't tutoring you in math, I'd forget you were from the past at all, Edith. You've really adapted well."

"Thank you," Edith said, and patted Jim's knee as he sat beside her. "Jim's been a big help, as have all of you, really. There isn't a person I've met aboard the _Enterprise_ who's treated me less than nicely— even the historians I agreed to let interview me were wonderful, and I expected them to be all about facts and things, but they weren't. In fact, Lieutenant Junior Grade McGivers was interested in how I lived, and not in facts about the times."

For a moment, hearing McGivers's name, Kirk felt… something, a bubbling in his mind, as though that name were connected with something big, something important, but he couldn't quite latch onto it— it was probably a leftover from his mind-link with Old Spock, something that had been dumped into his mind when the Ambassador had mind-melded with him to convince Kirk that he really was from the future.

_Maybe I'll figure out why McGivers name makes me twitchy, someday,_ Kirk thought. Mentally, he resigned himself to the more probable outcome. _Probably not— but, hey, all that stuff Old Spock dumped in my head must have some purpose, right?_

That evening, he took his wife down to the Guardian Planet, let her watch and listen to the Guardian of Forever while several quantum physicists interacted with it— and was just as shocked as she was when it spoke to her.

"Edith Keeler, now Edith Kirk," the Guardian said, after answering a question regarding temporal distortions and super-gravity. "You have a question. Ask it."

Edith approached the Guardian, reached out and stroked the rippled stone of its arch, and asked softly, "Am I where I belong?"

"You are." The Guardian sounded as it always did, strong and direct. "This is your time, now. You are a natural part of the time stream as it is here and now. Removing you would damage the time stream— much as leaving you in the era of your birth would have."

"I… thank you." Edith patted the stone once and stepped back.

"I have performed my function, and answered your question," the Guardian intoned. "You need not thank me— you have helped me fulfill my purpose. I thank you."

For a moment, Edith and Jim simply stared back and forth from each other to the Guardian… then they walked away silently, arms around each others' waists— and smiling.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Six months passed, and Edith Kirk was accepted into Starfleet Academy as a cadet in the Medical Corps. After a mere two and a half years (with her husband coming to see her as often as his duty permitted, which wasn't often enough for either of them), Edith Kirk outperformed her husband by six months, and graduated with honors as a surgical nurse. Her husband took leave time to attend her graduation— as did Dr. Leonard McCoy, who had already requested her for assignment aboard the _Enterprise_. This request was granted, and while he refused to answer any inquiries on the matter, both of the Kirks and McCoy suspected that Admiral Christopher Pike might well have pulled strings to aid that assignment.

(In fact, the whole crew was given a month's leave, as Starfleet had scheduled a minor refit of the _Enterprise_. It should be noted that Starfleet Security forces were nearly required to physically remove Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott from "his" ship during the refit, and he did insist on the "shakedown cruise" afterward being done only when the original crew had returned— an insistence aided and abetted by James T. Kirk.)

Edith Kirk delighted in her new duties, and was very, very good at them, according to Drs. McCoy and M'Benga. She also was welcomed aboard by those she'd befriended in her original seven months on the _Enterprise_, including head nurse Christine Chapel— and Nyota Uhura, who had been married to Spock just before Edith left the ship.

The wedding had been rather hasty, and Edith, unlike most of the rest of the crew, was let in on the fact that Vulcan men, while they can and do enjoy sexual congress, have an actual biological _need_ to mate every seven years after reaching maturity— and though Spock's half-human nature had delayed the onset of that need, it had not eliminated it. Since this act required the telepathic presence, as well as the physical presence of a mate, Spock and Uhura had been married by Vulcan custom— to the immense satisfaction of both parties.

Edith and Jim Kirk picked up their relationship as though it had never been interrupted, which delighted them, their friends, and in the end, the entire crew of the _Enterprise_.

Early in the fourth year of the _UFPS Enterprise's_ five year voyage, the ship was called back to the planet that had been the cause of its captain and his wife meeting— and things got rather dangerous for a while.

"Captain, I have an incoming message for you from Starfleet, coded 'Captain's Eyes Only,' " said Lieutenant Uhura (who hadn't even _tried_ to take her husband's last name as her own, given the difficulty that human's had with it, and the sheer _length_ of the thing). "Shall I send it to your office?"

"Yes, thank you, Lieutenant," Kirk said, and headed for the small office that had been installed for him just off of the bridge. Starfleet had installed the small-but-comfortable room off of the bridge during the recent refit, and it was Jim Kirk's favorite result of the refit. "Mr. Spock, you have the conn."

Kirk went to his office, and Spock dutifully moved to the center seat of the bridge— though Kirk knew that his first officer would stay there only long enough to peruse the captain's most recent log entries and make sure that no task required command attention before he returned to his science station.

Kirk sat at his desk, turned on his viewer, and opened the file Uhura had delivered to his terminal with his command and personal passwords. Immediately, the seated form of Admiral Christopher Pike appeared on the screen and began speaking.

"Greetings, Captain Kirk," Pike said, and Kirk almost responded, even though this was a recording— the _Enterprise_ was too far from Earth for real-time transmissions, even through subspace. "A situation has come up that calls for attention, and given that you and your crew have some previous experience with the planet that is central to the situation, this job falls to you.

"The Federation scientific and research station on planet MH-15704, known to you and much of your crew as 'the Guardian Planet,' is suffering from a series of accidents and thefts that may well be the act of hostile parties— as each accident has resulted in harm or death coming to a staff member, and the thefts have been of sensitive material which could be devastating in the wrong hands.

"The base commander, Commander Samuel Wells— I believe he prefers 'doctor,' actually, he's a multi-disciplinary physicist— has increased base security to the maximum possible with limited personnel, but his security men are going to be doing heel-and-toe watches until you get there, at which point your security personnel are to augment that of the base until the personnel transport _Vancouver_ arrives with a security augmentation force of Federation Marines. The _Vancouver_ will be about three days behind you, Captain.

"The _Enterprise_ is to proceed at maximum sustainable warp to the Guardian Planet, assess the situation, and solve it _in any way necessary_— I'm sure I don't need to warn you of the dangers of that planet falling into enemy hands.

"For the duration of this mission, Captain Kirk, you are granted 'unusual breadth of discretion' as defined in Starfleet General Order Seven." Pike leaned closer to the screen then, and said seriously, "Jim, you know what's at risk, here— but you also know that Starfleet hates to authorize gee-oh-seven. Be careful how you use that 'unusual breadth of discretion,' Captain Kirk. Don't let it bite you.

"Good luck, Captain. Pike out."

Jim Kirk sat back in his chair for a moment, staring at the Starfleet seal on his otherwise blank screen. Then he sat forward and opened the attached file, which detailed the incidents at the station on the Guardian Planet. He read the dry précis, whistled under his breath in worried amazement, then closed the screen. After a moment, he stood, muttered a heartfelt "Shit!" and went back to the bridge.

He stepped out of his office to find Spock back at his science station, as anticipated, and he moved to the center seat with purpose. Once there, he punched the intercom. "Kirk to Engineering."

"Scott here, Captain."

"Mister Scott, we've been given new orders, and we need to go somewhere in a hurry," Kirk said, his voice calm. "I'm going to need warp factor six for a while."

Scott let out the sigh of a man asked to do the impossible before his morning coffee, then said, "Aye, Captain. You'll have it for so long as you need it."

"Excellent, Scotty," Kirk said. "Bridge out.

"Mr. Chekov, plot us a course for planet MH-15704, best possible course for maximum speed, minimum risk."

"Aye, Keptin," Chekov said, his voice steadier than it would have been two years before, but still with an undercurrent of excitement that the older man found amusing. For a moment, the lieutenant junior grade's hands danced across his board, then he said, "Course plotted and laid in, sair. At varp factor six, ve should arrive at MH-15704 in approximately forty hours."

"Thank you, Mr. Chekov. Sulu, set us on Mr. Chekov's course and take us to warp six as quickly as is safe, then call your relief to the bridge.

"Spock, I want department heads in conference room A for a mission briefing in ten minutes."

"Understood, Captain," Spock said, and began making the appropriate notifications while Uhura quietly called her relief and his to the bridge, having heard the order and knowing they would both be at the meeting, him for the science department, her for communications.

Ten minutes later, Kirk looked around the briefing room and counted off his department heads. Spock for Sciences, McCoy for Medical, Scotty for Engineering (looking like he'd much rather be back with his engines than here), Lieutenant Syjja Thran, an Andorian, for Stores and Personnel, Uhura for Communications, Sulu for Helm and Navigation, and the man who'd probably be bearing the weight of most of this mission, Lieutenant Jason Rhys, the _Enterprise's_ Chief of Security.

"All right, people," Kirk said, and sent the file of information on what had occurred (minus the message from Admiral Pike) around to the others' terminals. "Here's the situation; five people have been injured, two killed, on the planet MH-15704, commonly know to most of you as 'the Guardian World.' Lieutenant Rhys, you joined us after that particular trip, so I've appended a briefing on the nature of the planet— try to keep up."

"Actually, sir, I've read it already," Rhys said, smiling a little. "Speed-reader. I'm briefed."

Kirk blinked and looked at his security chief, a man of average height and build who, Kirk had cause to know, was much more dangerous than he appeared— they had sparred a few times, and Kirk, who had been the undisputed champion at unarmed combat in his Academy days (and stayed in training) had to really work to get a victory over the older man. His bland good looks and slightly pale coloring only added to the illusion that Jason Rhys was not a physical threat— and now he'd read a seven-page, information-dense briefing on a mission in less than a minute?

_I've got a better crew than even I knew,_ Kirk thought as he nodded at the man. "Very well, Mr. Rhys, then we'll go on."

Kirk detailed the injuries of the five injured personnel, complete with attached medical files, and the circumstances around each. After listing the circumstances of the third man to be injured (an apparent fall while climbing for the top of a storage shelf in the station's equipment locker), he was interrupted by McCoy.

"Impossible!" McCoy said, snorting in derision. "I don't know what they've got for a doctor on that station, Jim, but he can't be much good at his job if he thinks a fall really caused that injury."

"Why's that, Bones?"

"The man was plainly struck in the side of the neck by a narrow object," McCoy said, putting a picture of the injury in question up on the screens of all present. "Yet the cause of injury is listed as a fall to an unobstructed floor? Come on, that's practically impossible."

"Any thoughts on what might have actually happened, Bones?" Kirk asked.

"It's too late to examine him and be sure," McCoy muttered, looking at the sub-dermal images that he could interpret much better than the others, "but it looks to me like somebody hit him with a stick, Captain."

"Doctor McCoy?" Rhys interrupted, looking intrigued. When McCoy looked at him, the security man asked, "Can you tell if it was a stick, a rod— or something softer?"

"Hmm." McCoy adjusted his screen, played with the magnification and various depths of image. "It might have been something softer— back when I was a younger man, I'd have said someone hit him with a kosh." At the blank looks around the table, McCoy said, "Something hard, but wrapped in something softer to mitigate the blow."

"Like a hand, maybe, Doctor?" Rhys asked.

"I don't think so, Jason." McCoy was on a first-name-basis with the entire crew, as were all the medical officers Kirk had ever met. "A human hand couldn't cause this sort of damage without injury to the hand itself."

"May I point out, Doctor," Spock said, quietly, "that my hand could, I believe, apply that sort of damage to a human without injury to me?"

"Well, sure, Spock, but there aren't a lot of Vulcans that are prone to belting people when surprised, so— oh." McCoy blinked and said slowly, "But Romulans, on the other hand, are physically very similar to Vulcans— and we know they've shown an interest in the Guardian Planet before."

"Indeed," Spock said, nodding slowly. He looked at Rhys and said, "Lieutenant, it might be advisable to issue your men Type II phasers and instruct them to set them on 'heavy stun,' as a Romulan, like a Vulcan, might be able to continue to function well enough to incapacitate a human even after being shot by a phaser on the standard stun setting."

"Thank you, Commander," Rhys said, and looked at the captain. "If you've no objection, sir?"

"No objection, it's a sound precaution, regardless of whether or not this is Romulans." Kirk smiled a little and said, "For all we know, it could be the Klingons. Or something out of the Guardian.

"Hell, it could be my nephews. If those three got word that there was a planet with a time gate on it, they might have pirated a ship and come to poke around."

"Remind me," Bones said in a dry voice, "never to visit your brother and his family with you, Jim. Sounds like your nephews are a handful."

"Two handfuls, minimum." Kirk shook his head. "All right— orders for approach. We're gonna come in hot, Sulu, work with Chekov to figure the closest safe approach at warp, then how long we can sustain point-nine-five light speed before we absolutely have to slow down to enter orbit— if there's a ship that brought the suspected saboteurs in orbit, I want to surprise him.

"Spock, you work the sensors on our approach, passive mode as long as possible, then blitz the area with active sensors."

" 'Blitz,' Captain?" Spock said, his right eyebrow going up sharply. "I was not aware of any similarity between an active sensor scan and the Earth game known as 'gridiron—' but I shall indeed use the sensors at their maximum settings."

"Thank you, Mr. Spock," Kirk said with a small eye-roll. "Uhura, the second we're in range, I want you scanning every single known form of communication for outgoing— or incoming— transmissions. Subspace, radio— that would be good enough for communications between a ship and a team on the planet— whatever you can think of. If you see flashes of light from the planet—"

"I'll assume they're code and begin cryptographic analysis, Captain," Uhura assured him.

"Good deal," Kirk said. He looked at Lieutenant Thran and said, "Lieutenant, please go over the personnel records for nonessential departments, and send anyone with prior security experience to Lt. Rhys. Also, I think I'd like to outfit at least some of the security for undercover work— see Mr. Spock for images from our first visit, then see what you can come up with for camouflage uniforms for outdoors. Standard indoor camouflage for the rest."

"Yes, sir," Thran piped. Then she smiled a nearly feral smile and said, "I myself have security training, Captain— may I volunteer my services to Lt. Rhys after I have completed your other orders?"

Kirk nodded, and said, "Of course, Lt. Thran— and if you need a recommendation, I'll vouch for you, after the last time we sparred."

"I've sparred her," Rhys said, grinning. "Offer accepted, Lieutenant— thank you."

"All right, I think that covers us until we arrive at the Guardian Planet," Kirk said. He stood and said, "We arrive in about thirty-nine hours, gentlebeings. Let's get to work.

"Dismissed."

The department heads stood as Kirk did, and they all went about their jobs with the efficiency that Kirk expected— and took pride in receiving.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Kirk arranged to be on the bridge when the _Enterprise_ came out of warp, and he actually found himself tensing up as Sulu, working from a carefully rehearsed maneuver planned by himself and Chekov, took the ship from warp factor six to warp point-nine-five to a stationary orbit above this roughly Earth-sized planet… in significantly less than the lowest calculated safe time.

As Kirk sat there in his command chair, trying his best to hide that he was gripping the arms of that chair very tightly, Spock and Uhura worked quietly and without notable tension at their own assigned tasks. In fact, while Jim Kirk was utterly certain that Scotty, down in engineering, was as tense as he was (if not more so, and certainly more visibly and vociferously), no one else seemed to take any note of what was happening. Sulu was attentive, and he was, perhaps, sitting forward over his board a little more than usual, but Chekov, sitting next to him, only watched the view screen as the _Enterprise_ practically _slammed_ into orbit above the Guardian Planet.

Then it was done— and Sulu said, in a rather smug tone, "Standard orbit, Captain. Nothing unusual on navigational sensors."

"Nicely done, Sulu, Chekov." Kirk took a deep breath and said, "Mister Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, see what you can learn in the next hour— then we'll beam down and take a look at the situation on planet."

"Yes, Captain," Spock replied.

Uhura said, "Aye, s—" then frowned, pressed a hand to her earpiece, frowned, and snapped, "Picking up radio signals from directly ahead in our orbital path, Cap—"

"Shields up!" Kirk said, "Sound red alert! Sulu, evasive! Uhura, battle protocols, Chekov, start looking for that vessel's drive emissions, Spo—"

A beam of bright green energy appeared from somewhere ahead of and below the _Enterprise_ (Sulu had opted to take the ship relative up, remembering that the Romulans hated to be below other species), and the blast hit the support pylon between the engineering hull and the saucer section on the port side. The _Enterprise_ shuddered, but not too violently.

"Minimal damage to decks fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, Captain," Spock said, his voice as calm and dry as ever. "Shields in the affected area are at seventy percent. Minor loss of hull plating on all three decks, but no loss of pressure— the structural integrity fields are holding."

"Understood," Kirk said, and looked at Chekov. "Anything, Mr. Chekov?"

"Not yet, Keptin," Chekov said, his eyes locked on his sensor readouts.

"Spock?"

"I am recalibrating the sensors to detect radio waves and feed the source to the helm, Captain," Spock said, sounding slightly distracted. "I cannot, however, guaran—"

A second blast from the Romulan ship hit them, this time in the underside of the saucer section, forward of the main support pylon. This hit shook the ship worse than the first one had, and Kirk winced in sympathy with his vessel.

"Sulu, if you even _think_ you have a target, fire phasers," Kirk said, his voice calm. "Mr. Chekov, if Sulu fires and you see a shield corona, don't wait for orders— pass the sensor data to the photon torpedo crews and order them to fire."

"Aye, Captain."

"Understood, Keptin."

"Spock, damage report?"

"The forward phaser array on deck twelve is… destroyed, Captain." Spock's voice held a somber tone that both Kirk and Uhura could identify as deep sadness. "Security reports that the entire emplacement is gone— no survivors."

Kirk felt his temper flare and bit back on it savagely— he couldn't afford to get that sort of angry, not now, but eight of his crew… gone. "Sulu, if we were in an atmosphere, what would you do about an enemy that prefers to be above you, but will take the belly shot?"

Sulu caught on immediately. "Barrel roll, Captain?"

"Let's stick with a snap roll— don't want to run into these guys, ramming is not an acceptable starship tactic. But do it fairly slowly, I think that will make it harder for them to figure out how to react. And transfer weapons control to navigation, I want you paying attention to your driving."

"I _love_ this job," Sulu said, so quietly that Kirk almost missed it. Louder he said, "Aye, Captain— weapons control transferred… instituting roll."

The ship had only made about a quarter roll when a blast of green light arrowed in from the space above and to the starboard side of the ship, though not above by very much. The ship shuddered hard, Spock said, "Targeting data, Mr. Chekov" in a voice that almost managed urgency— and Chekov's hand stabbed at his board a split second later.

Lances of red fire stabbed out of both starboard side phaser emplacements, and they hit something— but the ship wasn't lined up at all properly for a photon torpedo launch, not when the torpedo crews wouldn't even be able to see the corona as the enemy ship— by shape, a Romulan bird of prey— glowed with the interaction of shields and phasers.

The Romulan vessel fired again— and the bridge jumped underneath the crew, almost. Kirk stayed in the center seat by hanging on for dear life. Spock, who had (as usual) disdained the seat at his station, was flung to the deck. Uhura, Chekov and Sulu barely managed to stay in their seats, and the lieutenant at the engineering station, a young woman named Prentiss, actually cried out and flung herself to the deck away from a dangerous energy discharge as her console shorted visibly.

"Sulu, get crazy, pretend this is a biplane," Kirk said, his tone serious. Then he called, "Spock?"

"Uninjured, Captain," came his first officer's voice. "Uhura, notify sickbay about Prentiss."

"I'm all right, Commander," Prentiss said, pulling herself to her feet on the bridge railing. "My console's going to need serious repair before it's good for more than setting a drink on, though. I'll do what I can now— but it's bad."

"Understood, Lieutenant," Kirk said, nodding her way. "Do what you can— or Scotty will have _both_ our hides."

"Aye, Captain," Prentiss said, and went for the tool locker to one side of her station.

"Chekov?" Kirk asked. "Anything?"

"Lost them, Keptin," the young Russian groused. "They seem to have gone radio silent."

"Uhura?"

"Battle protocols are in play," Uhura said, her voice steady and almost distracted. "Recording all frequencies, applying cryptography programs to all signals, jamming subspace.

"Captain, I can jam their radio, if you like— since they've gone silent for the moment, it won't detract from our efforts to find them."

Kirk shot his chief communications officer a grin over his shoulder and said, "Do it. And remind me to put you in for a raise, Lieutenant."

"Yes, Captain."

"Captain, I am unable to detect any sign that the Romulans are using their impulse engines." Spock turned to face his commander and cocked his head slightly. "They may be operating on maneuvering thrusters." The Vulcan nodded in the direction of the viewscreen, which was (thanks to the ship's artificial gravity and inertial dampeners) the only indicator of the utterly insane maneuvers that Sulu was cheerfully putting the ship through. "Under the circumstances, I would suggest that Mr. Sulu's acrobatic maneuvers may have the enemy confused, even angry. They are very likely waiting for a 'good shot' to pass through their targeting viewers— and when they do that, if they are on maneuvering thrusters—"

"Then they'll likely hold station and wait for us to pass through their sights again." Kirk nodded and grinned. "Good thinking, Spock." He spun his chair and said, "Mr. Chekov, when the enemy fires again, note the coordinates the blast comes from, but do not fire— not this pass."

"Aye, Keptin," Chekov said, a small smile on his face. "And ven ve are in a good position to fire on those coordinates?"

"Then we give them a heaping helping of what they've given us." Kirk glared at the empty space on the screen, then added, "Let's see if they can take it as well as they can dish it out.

"In the meantime, Mr. Chekov, reinforce our shields over particularly vulnerable areas." Kirk looked thoughtful for a moment then said, "I'm betting they fire on the bridge. Any takers?"

"I'd go for our impulse engines, Captain," Sulu said, never taking his eyes off of his controls. "Take those out, there's a good chance that the primary hull gets blown clear of the pylon, then the bridge is easy pickings."

"Good point, Mr. Sulu," Kirk admitted. "But this is a Romulan commander we're talking about— the minute he fired on us, it became personal for him— he'll want to take out the bridge to get the people who are stumping him while he tries to do his duty.

"Ten credits, Lieutenant?"

"Isn't gambling against regulations, Captain?" Sulu asked, trying to look innocent as he flew the ship like an old stunt airplane.

"I won't tell if you don't."

"Then it's a bet, sir." Sulu finished the loop he'd just put the _Enterprise_ through, rolled ninety degrees to port, and started a split-S maneuver—

—and green energy beams lanced out from space somewhere "above" the bridge, impacted on the shields there, again made the ship jump and shudder. This time, Spock stayed on his feet, and he was speaking before the lights on the bridge (which dimmed briefly) came back up.

"No serious damage to control systems, but the shields around the bridge are only at twelve percent, Captain. We cannot take another hit like that unless we give Mr. Scott and his crew time to effect repairs first."

"Understood, Spock." Kirk risked standing for a moment, paced over behind Sulu and said, "Mister Sulu, if we figure that the weapons that fired on us were the Romulans' main disruptors, can you bring us through some maneuvers that will leave it looking like we're about to give them a second shot at the bridge— and maybe a follow-up shot at the impulse engines?"

"I can, Captain." Sulu quirked a smile. "And I'll pay you your ten credits as soon as we're off-shift, sir.

"Do you want to come at them from relative up or down, sir?"

"Relative down, Sulu— if we come in from above, that will make them more nervous, and they might reinforce their shields." Kirk grinned a hard, angry grin and said, "Can't have that— I want these bastards disabled before they do any more damage to my crew."

"Maneuvering," Sulu said, and his hands actually seemed to move across the controls more swiftly than before— which Kirk wouldn't have thought possible. "Pavel, this is going to be a small window of opportunity, if I slow down the maneuvers, they may get suspicious."

"Don't vorry," Chekov said. "I am ready, Sulu. Keptin?"

"Fire a full volley of photons and phasers, Mr. Chekov, alternating, so that we've a better chance of punching through their shields." He moved back to his seat, clenched his hands on the armrests, and said, "Sulu, count us down."

"Target coming up in six… five… four… three… two… one… now!"

"Fire," Kirk said, his voice perfectly level.

Red lances lashed out from above and below the saucer section of the _Enterprise,_ alternating with the twin balls of intense light that were photon torpedoes, and from the first second, Jim Kirk knew that his crew had done it right once again— the first phaser blasts made the enemy's shields light up in a corona that revealed the shape of a Romulan bird of prey— and showed that the _Enterprise_ was coming up at the bird's belly.

Chekov stuttered the photons for a moment, gave the torpedo crews a better chance to lock on to the enemy vessel as its cloak shorted out from the first weapons volley. Then his fingers stabbed the board again, and the phasers and torpedoes volleyed again— and blew a major hole in the belly of the bird of prey just before a pair of well-placed phaser and torpedo shots from the _Enterprise_ blew one of the enemy ship's warp nacelles clear off.

"Nice shooting, Chekov," Kirk observed, his voice hard. "Sulu, Nice flying.

"Uhura, see if they'll answer a hail."

Uhura touched several controls, then said, "On screen, Captain."

The interior of the Romulan bridge appeared on screen, small, cramped and dim, compared to that of the _Enterprise,_ made more so now by smoke, flame and sparks. Centered in the viewscreen was a Romulan male in a uniform that Kirk recognized from past dealings with Romulans as that of a commander, the Romulan equivalent of a captain.

"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the _UFPS Enterprise,"_ Kirk said. "May I ask your name, Commander?"

"I am Commander Hathiss Koreldan," the man said, drawing himself to an even more stiff version of attention. "I salute you James T. Kirk, as a worthy foe— and a superior tactician." With that, the Romulan did, in fact, salute, pressing his clenched right fist over the left side of his chest and bowing slightly as he did so.

"Thank you, Commander." Kirk stood up. "If you will surrender, I will have you and your crew beamed aboard the _Enterprise_. You will be treated decently, and it is very likely that, in the end, you will be returned to your home space."

"Would that I could accept," the Commander said— and he glanced to one side and made a single, slashing gesture with his right hand. "I would like to shake your hand, James T. Kirk, and perhaps toast you— but honor requires more of me than surrender."

"Commander, your crew—" Kirk started, stepping towards the screen.

"No." The Romulan smiled a little, and again saluted. "To you and your crew, I offer our respect— you are worthy foes, and from my people, there is no higher praise.

"Farewell, _Enterprise_."

The screen went back to a view of space, and Kirk saw that Sulu was already putting distance between the _Enterprise_ and the bird of prey, and he saw Chekov's hands moving over the shield controls, reinforcing them where they faced the Romulan vessel.

When the other ship exploded, the _Enterprise_ was barely rocked— and Jim Kirk shook his head and muttered, "Dammit. What a waste.

"All right— Spock, how bad is it?"

"Major damage to decks twelve and eleven, Captain, from the attack that destroyed the forward phaser emplacement," Spock said, his voice grim. "Also major damage to decks two and three, port and away from the bridge. Minor damage to deck four in that same area.

"Casualties… sick bay was untouched by the damage to the ship, but is currently overloaded with patients."

"How many dead?" Kirk asked, his voice rough.

"Twenty-nine, Captain," Spock said. He shook his head slightly and added, "The shot that damaged Prentiss's console was the worst. Mister Scott and his engineering crews are requesting that no one leave their current locations until they can assess the damage directly— the damage to the bridge has interfered with their ability to check the damage remotely."

"Uhura, give me the all-call," Kirk said. When she nodded, he spoke again, and now his voice echoed through the ship. "Attention all hands, this is the captain. The battle is over, but damage to ship's systems has made remote damage assessment and control difficult to impossible. If you are uninjured and in solid pressure, please do not leave your present location until such time as the all-clear is given.

"If you or someone with you is injured, contact sickbay and wait for assistance— damage control crews will prioritize those repairs need to get to injured crew.

"If pressure is questionable, call the transporter room for immediate beam-out.

"Stay calm, and we'll get through this without further casualties.

"Kirk out."

With that, Jim Kirk sat back in his seat, dry-scrubbed his face, and waited as patiently as he could for the moment when he could go to sick bay and make utterly sure for himself that his wife was all right.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Two hours after the battle with the Romulans, Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Rhys, McCoy and _Nurse_ Kirk beamed down to the surface of the Guardian Planet. They were met by Doctor Samuel Wells, a tall, well-built man in his fifties. He was disturbed by the battle in orbit— but more perturbed by another "accident," this time resulting in the death of a security officer.

"Mister Cameron was patrolling the outer perimeter of the base, back on the far side, away from the Guardian," Wells told Kirk and the others as he led them to the base's small medical building, where the bodies were being preserved for McCoy to examine. "He called in that he'd heard something in the rocks up high, and said he was going up to take a look." Wells looked sad and shook his head as he continued. "Michael was a great climber— he grew up on Caladon, a Federation colony planet that has slightly higher gravity than Earth, and there were mountains and cliffs all over the place where he grew up. He'd go climbing on his days off, here, and just watching him was… well, it gave me the shivers. But he was very good.

"So when we didn't hear from him, and we found him at the base of the rock-face he'd climbed a half a dozen times, well… I'm fairly sure it was murder. I'm more likely to trip on a smooth floor than Michael Cameron was to fall from what he called a 'grade-school climb.' "

"All right, Doctor Wells," Kirk said soothingly. "Since your own medical doctor was killed, Dr. McCoy and Nurse Kirk will look over your injured before the doctor does his examination of the bodies.

"Mister Rhys, go ahead and bring your security detail down here, please— you can investigate after the guards are reinforced."

"Yes, sir," Rhys said. He hesitated a moment then said, "Sir, the planet is largely lifeless, as I understood it. Could I ask the _Enterprise_ to scan for life forms? Her sensors are a lot more powerful than any tricorder."

"Good idea, Mr. Rhys," Kirk said, nodding. "Tell the science officer on duty that you need it."

The security man turned to walk back towards the Guardian a little bit before he stopped and pulled out his communicator.

"While McCoy looks over your people, I'd like to have Mr. Spock and Lieutenant Uhura look over your communications gear and surveillance equipment, Dr. Wells." Kirk looked up at the security sensors all around the area, and frowned. "If you've got intruders getting inside the perimeter and there isn't footage of them… well, something's wrong."

"Yes, that's more than fine," Wells said, and indicated a building. "That's the communications center, the security office is inside, too. Commander, Lieutenant, if there is any difficulty, tell the people on duty to contact me. I don't think there will be— all of us are worried, and it's frankly quite a relief to have Starfleet here.

"In fact, I'll just escort you now— to be sure there's no lost time in your investigation."

"Thank you, Doctor," Kirk said. He quirked a smile and said, "In three days or so, you'll have some Federation Marines for security. Starfleet Command is taking this very, very seriously."

"That's a relief," Wells said, and he shivered a little, though whether from the wind that had sprung up or reaction, Kirk couldn't tell. "Frankly, Captain, I hope we can get that made permanent— a rotation of men, but a permanent garrison here, I mean.

"It's a little frightening to be responsible for the security of something like the Guardian. Something that, if tampered with in the wrong way, could wipe out entire civilizations."

"Doctor Wells," Kirk said as they stepped into the communications and security building, "you just said a _mouthful_."

An hour and a half later, Kirk gathered his people together to see what they'd found. He himself, so as not to bug anyone doing delicate or concentration-requiring work, had borrowed a security officer from the station's security men and gotten a tour of the facility. It was a total of twelve buildings, four of them barracks and quarters, three utility buildings— sick bay, the communications and security building and the combination stores warehouse and power generation facility, and the last five the various labs the facility used, all spread over a chunk of land roughly a quarter of a mile on a side. The security seemed pretty good to Kirk, good coverage on the constant surveillance, locks that he thought might take Spock either a whole minute or some specialized tools to override— quality stuff.

"What have we got, then? Spock?"

Spock shook his head and indicated the _Enterprise's_ head of security. "The progress we made was largely due to Lt. Rhys. I believe he should inform you of our progress, Captain."

Rhys gave Spock a look of faint surprise, then said, "Well— there's no way I could've proved my theories without you and Lt. Uhura, Commander, but thank you."

Spock only nodded, and Rhys turned to Kirk. "Captain, the Romulans practically _own_ the security systems here at the facility. If not for the armed guards constantly on the Guardian, they'd have probably accomplished what they set out to do, sir."

Kirk blinked. "Okay, so how'd they do this? And how did you figure it out?"

"Pretty obvious, really," Rhys said. "You took a walking tour, Captain, I saw you out there. Did you see any holes in the security coverage?"

"No, not that I noticed." Kirk frowned a little and said, "Security isn't my specialty, of course, but for command, you have to learn the basics of everything. The coverage of the surveillance sensors looked complete to me."

"It is, sir, and it took me some time to figure out what the heck they did to get past it," Rhys said. "In the end— sir, I have to admit, I almost missed it because I'm a Starfleet man. A Federation Marine security officer wouldn't have missed it, not like I almost did.

"I had to go back to the accident reports to find it, sir. The very first accident, in the security office? Crewman Calavicci went to the bathroom, came out, and apparently fell and hit his head.

"That wasn't a case of hit his head— it was a case of the Romulan who _beamed into the security office_ while Calavicci was in the bathroom clobbered the kid when he came out, then inserted a virus into the security monitoring program that lets them loop the footage for sixty seconds at a time to move past any particular camera."

"Son of a bitch," Kirk said, nodding. "I wouldn't have thought of it either, Mr. Rhys— I'm used to a ship under the level of security this station is under having her shields up— so you wouldn't be able to beam in like that."

"Yes, sir," Rhys agreed, nodding. "As soon as I thought of it, I consulted with Cdr. Spock and Lt. Uhura, and they were able to confirm that it had been done. The how is speculation, of course— but it's how I'd have done it."

"Are you trying to tell me," McCoy said slowly, "that Romulan ships have sensors that can tell what part of a building a person is in— and they can tell a bathroom from other rooms?"

"Yes, Doctor," Rhys said. He looked thoughtful, then said, "Well— yes to the first part, for certain. The second part… they would be able to tell the _size_ of a room, Doctor, which, given their similar biology when it comes to digestion and waste, would probably let them figure out that the room in question was a lavatory."

For a long moment, Leonard McCoy just sat shaking his head. Then he looked up at his Captain and said, "I guess I can resign my commission, now, Jim— now that I've heard _everything_."

"Later, Bones, I need you for a while yet," Kirk said. He looked back at Rhys. "Explain what the Romulans are doing, please, and how you worked it all out."

"Well, sir, the virus itself wouldn't be difficult to create," Rhys said slowly. "And by being able to input it directly into the computers monitoring the surveillance sensors, they could be sure it took before they left.

"Commander Spock found the virus with very little effort, and Lt. Uhura figured out how they're triggering it— some rudimentary communication device, like— what was it again, Lieutenant?"

"Like a garage door opener, a device in heavy use in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Uncomplicated, sent only one signal, and that signal opened the door of a garage— a building for parking automobiles— opened the door if it was closed, closed it if it was open." Uhura shook her head in rueful admiration and added, "It really was a good idea. They aim one of these devices at a surveillance sensor, trigger it, and the virus kicks in, reruns the last sixty seconds of recorded feed over again, giving them time to move. By triggering the sensors in series, they could go anywhere, and be confident of not being seen, so long as they could see no personnel around."

"That's what we've got, sir." Rhys looked annoyed and added, "The ship couldn't detect any extra life forms down here— it may be that the Romulan ship beamed them back up before the battle, but I don't think so, there was radio traffic _during_ the battle.

"I think they're still down here, sir, and either have a small cloaking device or are underground in one of the areas where there are minerals that will interfere with sensors.

"But I do have a plan for catching them, Captain."

"Let's hear it, Lt. Rhys," Kirk said, leaning forward a little. Then he glanced sideways at McCoy and said, "No, hang on a second. Bones, what did you find out?"

"Cameron was murdered," McCoy said bluntly, a dark look on his face. "Stunned with a disruptor pistol. I can't swear it was a Romulan weapon as opposed to a Klingon version, Jim— but I'd bet on it, under the circumstances."

"I wouldn't" Uhura said immediately, and when McCoy looked at her and raised an eyebrow (with almost the facility that her husband did the same), she said, "Remember the first time the Romulans attacked us here, Doctor? Not long after the Captain brought Edith back home with him?

"The Romulans were using voice modification and speaking in Klingon, even back then. So if they went to the trouble of getting Klingon disruptor pistols for this? I wouldn't be even a little bit surprised."

"Good point, Uhura," McCoy agreed, and looked at the captain. "I modify my original statement— might well have been a Klingon pistol that fired the shot.

"Either way, it was murder— not even just a case of 'he saw me, I had to shoot him and he fell,' Jim. Jason took a look at the scene and the clothes that Cameron had on, and there's a plainly visible spot where the boy was shot— in the back."

"Then," Rhys added, "he was dragged to the edge of the cliff and thrown off. I found a couple of drag marks that the killer missed cleaning up, and Cameron's boots had plainly been dragged over stone covered with a light layer of sand. The backs of the boots were scuffed from heel to boot-top, and there was a little sand in them."

"Well done, people," Kirk said. Then he looked at Rhys. "Now, how do we catch them?"

"Mister Spock says that he can disable their virus, and also disable the _second_ virus that is supposed alert the Romulans if the first one's been disabled," Rhys said, nodding his respect at the Vulcan. "Which part I wouldn't even have seen— it was supposed to flash the 'active' light on a sensor pod if the virus had been tampered with or disabled.

"Anyway, we let Mr. Spock do that, then we keep a fully armed and ready security team in the transporter room, ready to beam down and surround the target. After that, finding his camp shouldn't be too hard, we just backtrack him."

"That sounds like a plan," Kirk said, nodding and standing. "Make it happen, Mr. Rhys. The rest of you— you did a good job. Not like that's news to any of you, but I do like to say it.

"Edith, before we go back up, would you like to walk over to the Guardian with me?"

"I'd enjoy that, yes, Jim," his wife agreed. "If the doctor doesn't need me?"

"No, we're through here," McCoy agreed. "Or you are. I'm going to stay down here, keep an eye on the injured for a couple of more days."

"I can stay, if it would help," Edith volunteered immediately.

"Wouldn't hurt, but I can make—"

Kirk waved a hand at McCoy and said, "I'm a big boy, Doctor— I don't need her to tuck me in at night. There should be plenty of room in the barracks for her to stay down here, and we both know that she'll never give either of us a moment's peace if something happens that could've been prevented by you having a surgical nurse here with you."

"All right, thank you, Nurse." McCoy shook his head in mock exasperation and said, "But if you go running off to become a doctor like Christine Chapel's doing— she got her admission to medical school and her orders from Starfleet, Jim, she's going back to Earth on the _Vancouver_.

"If you do that to me, Edith, you'd better make sure there's as good a replacement for you as you are for Nurse Chapel waiting in the wings."

"I'll make a note of it, Doctor," Edith said, smiling at him. "But really, I'm much more likely to leave Starfleet and follow the advice of Mister Spock, Admiral Pike and my husband, and join the Federation Diplomatic Corps."

McCoy threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes theatrically, and said, "Well, fine— but you make sure there's a nurse as good as you are assigned to the _Enterprise_ first, young lady!"

All but Spock laughed, and they all stood and went their separate ways.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Jim Kirk and his wife were most of the way to the Guardian of Forever, which could barely be seen in the dim light of dusk— they had arrived late in the local day— when the captain's communicator chirped for attention. He stopped and flipped it open. "Kirk here."

"Captain, there are four Romulans in the camp, headed directly for the Guardian of Forever," Spock's voice said, his tone low but clear. "I have you on the security monitors, and you and Edith are directly in their path. I should advise concealment behind the rocks behind you and to your left. Quickly, Captain, the Romulans are making excellent time."

Edith was already moving, tugging Jim gently by his free hand as he responded.

"Understood, Spock— the security detail?"

"Moving, Captain, but they were not yet in place." Spock sounded calm and steady, and that helped Kirk stay the same way. "They will arrive in time to prevent the Romulans making an assault on the men directly around the Guardian, perhaps even as they pass you."

"If so, that will be fine— I can see how they do for myself." Kirk crouched slightly and watched back towards the other end of the camp— the Guardian was near one edge, which he thought was sloppy planning— the camp should have been laid out with the great, sentient stone ring in the center. Of course, the great emptiness behind the Guardian would make for a difficult approach, true— maybe the layout wasn't so bad. He made a mental note to ask Lt. Rhys how he'd lay out the camp, later.

Then Kirk saw the four Romulans, dressed in camouflage gear based around the coloring of the local landscape, moving quickly but in an almost eerie silence, one carrying a small device with a directional antenna on it. Even as Kirk watched, the Romulan pointed the antenna at the next sensor pod in line and pressed the button. The group moved steadily on— and then stopped, maybe ten feet past the rock where Jim and Edith hid, when the leader raised his hand and cocked his head.

Kirk had no idea why the Romulan had stopped his team, but the man said something in what the captain presumed was Romulan— he wasn't carrying a Universal Translator— and the four drew their weapons and started a retreat.

Kirk stayed where he was, and realized what had tipped the Romulans off; he heard the peculiar, chiming whine of transporters. He knew that Spock had better hearing than a human, so it was only logical that the Romulans did, as well.

"Dammit," he muttered, thinking the Romulans were about to get away— and they stopped again, froze facing back the way they'd come. They hadn't heard him, or they'd have turned around, so what—

Then he heard the second transporter sound, and grinned. Of course, the Romulans were aiming to pick off the men that were about to appear in front of them, who had already started to appear in columns of spinning, white motes. Kirk couldn't allow that, so he drew his phaser and started to stand up straight—

—and heard the voice of Lieutenant Junior Grade Salara, the Andorian who was Jason Rhys's second in command, say, "Lower your weapons, now!"

The two Romulans at the back of their formation spun around, and one of them spoke sharply. After a moment of hesitation, all four of them laid down their weapons and straightened. Three of them put their hands on top of their heads, and even from here, Jim Kirk could see their lips moving, all three, as though they were praying— and he understood. He stood straight and said, "Stun them! Now!"

Too late. The man in back, who was plainly their leader, had something in his hands, and was speaking aloud into it.

"Fire!" Salara snapped, and the six man security team all did as they'd been ordered, firing phasers on heavy stun at the Romulans, who obligingly collapsed—

—and disappeared in a flash of green-white light a second later, as something, probably whatever their leader had been messing with, exploded. The blast didn't hurt any of either of the two security teams (the second team had beamed in while Kirk was ordering the first to fire— or Jim or Edith, but it did knock Salara and one of his six-person team, a slender woman from Alpha Centauri, to the ground and stagger Kirk. Edith caught him before he could fall, and he smiled a thank you at her as they stepped out from behind the rocks.

"Mister Salara, Ensign Nowlan, are you all right?" he called as the other security officers helped them up.

"Fine, Captain," Salara said, after glancing at Nowlan and getting a nod from her. "We're just light enough to have been bowled over by that— I think it was something like a disruptor overload, only from something without as powerful a battery. Maybe a communicator, rigged to self-destruct?"

"Trust the Romulans to make a communicator that's also a bomb," Kirk said, shaking his head. "Stupid, stubborn— their sense of honor really pisses me off, sometimes."

"I know, Jim," Edith said, looking sadly at the small crater where the Romulan espionage team had been. "It's the one thing that prevents us from making peace with them, Ambassador Sarek feels." At her husband's raised eyebrow, Edith said, "I've read every article that I can get that he's written, Jim. He's a fascinating man, I wish I'd been aboard the _Enterprise_ when you took him to the Babel Conference."

"You'll get to meet him, someday, I'm pretty sure," he assured her. "A couple of times, now, we've had him aboard for transport— he requests the _Enterprise_ so that he can visit Spock— and we're bound to do so again."

"I do hope you're right," Edith said, and followed him out towards the security teams.

They'd barely met with LJG Salara and his counterpart, LJG Sawyer from the second team, when Jim Kirk's communicator chimed again. He flipped it open and didn't even get a chance to speak before Spock said, "Captain, we have multiple transporter signals approximately one hundred yards to your rear, at least twenty beings, possibly more. I advise you to seek cover immediately."

"Understood, Kirk out," he said, and flipped his communicator closed as he looked at the security men. Salara had been at his rank longer, so Kirk said, "Lieutenant Salara, you're in charge— I'm taking Edith back to the security office. Defend the Guardian, and keep your team alive!"

"Yes, Captain." Salara turned and began issuing orders, Kirk started for the security office with his wife in tow—

—and two dozen columns of blue-green energy appeared between Jim, Edith, and the buildings of the outpost. They appeared to be filled with tiny starbursts, not the spinning white sparks that he was familiar with, but Jim Kirk still recognized them as transporter beams. He grabbed his wife's arm and ran like hell for the rocks off to one side.

Then the world exploded— or so it seemed at first. A huge flash of green light lit the area, and the air reverberated with something that sounded like thunder magnified past the point of sound, into solidity, into waves that could— and did— knock people from their feet.

"Jim, what's happening!" Edith shouted over the hideous noise.

"Those assholes are firing disruptors— _ship's_ disruptors!— at the surface!" Kirk roared, struggling to his feet and helping her up. "Are they out of their damned minds! What the hell are th—"

"The Guardian!" Edith cried. "They're trying to destroy it, Jim, since they can't use it!"

For a second, Jim Kirk only stared at his wife as realization dawned, then he said, just loud enough to be heard, "They _are_ out of their damned minds!"

He grabbed his wife and started for cover again, got three steps closer to the rocks— and, even over the awful racket of air not merely disturbed but actually violated by use of ship's disruptors on the surface of the planet, he heard a single hand weapon discharge, heard his wife cry out— and felt her grip tighten convulsively on his hand for just a moment before she let go of his hand and fell to the ground.

Jim Kirk didn't stop to examine his wife— if she was still alive, stopping to check on her might well get them both killed. Instead, he spun, his phaser coming into his hand as though beamed there, and when he saw the Romulan with the disruptor pointed his way, plainly the person who had shot his wife, Jim Kirk contemplated, for just an instant, thumbing the slide of his weapon's power selector forward from "heavy stun" to "kill."

In the end he didn't do it only because he knew that, if she was still alive, Edith would be disappointed in him if he killed the Romulan.

Kirk dove sideways as he fired, which threw his aim off a little bit— but he couldn't make himself feel bad about the fact that his phaser beam caught the Romulan full in the face, instead of center mass. _If I was a better marksman, I'd think I did that on purpose,_ he thought as the Romulan crumpled to the ground. _As it is, I'll take doing it on accident!_

Then Salara and Crewman First Class Moffat were there, putting themselves between their captain and his wife and the Romulans, phasers out and blazing, and Kirk could stop to check on Edith.

There was an ugly burn on the left side of Edith's stomach, but Kirk couldn't tell how bad it was. The cloth of her uniform hadn't kept burning, it was designed to be flame retardant, but the hole in it was at least four inches wide, as was the burn beneath it.

"Damn, now I wish I'd brought my medical kit with me," Edith Kirk said, her voice small and breathy. "I'll be all right, Jim, so long as I get medical treatment in the next…" She actually managed to look thoughtful for a moment, then finished, "call it eight hours. Plenty of time for you to hero this problem away, Captain Husband."

"I love you," he said, and gave her a smile as he slipped his arms under her. "This will hurt, Edith— I'm sorry, but—"

"Good lord, don't you dare apologize for carrying me off of a battlefield, James Tiberius Kirk, or I will ask Leonard about the nickname you had in the Academy, the one that everyone seems utterly unwilling to remember." She actually produced a smile at her husband's startled look and said, "Know you had one, suspect it had to do with your self-described 'roving eye,' but haven't tried to find it out.

"But if you so much as _start_ to apologize for taking care of me, I _will_ find it out!"

"Yes, dear," Jim Kirk said in a meek voice— and he lifted his wife, held her while he crouched for a second and looked around. "Salara! I'm getting Edith to cover!"

"One moment, Captain!" Salara called back, and Kirk saw that he had a communicator in the hand that wasn't holding a phaser. He spoke again, then flipped it closed and said, "There's a break in the rocks slightly to my right rear, sir— go that way, follow the path to a small clear area. You'll be met, local security is escorting Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy there. Go…." The Andorian hesitated a moment, kneeling in plain sight, relying on the rest of his team, who had found cover, to cover him for another few seconds as he waited for a particularly determined and deadly Romulan to show her face again. She popped up, he fired, hit her, and said, _"Now,_ sir!"

Kirk stood and ran, tried his best to ignore the little gasps of pain that came from his wife as his running steps jarred her injury, and listened to the sounds of the pitched phaser-and-disruptor battle as he ran through the gap in the in the rocks that Salara had directed him to. As soon as he passed through the opening, he found himself in a high-walled narrow canyon, and he slowed to a fast walk to make things easier on his wife.

"Jim?" Edith said as he moved along the twisty little canyon.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"I think you need to promote Mr. Salara."

"Believe me, as soon as he's eligible, he gets my recommendation," Kirk said. "That was a hell of a brave thing, relying on his men to cover him so he could take down that Romulan."

"Yes," Edith agreed. "And I remember what you told me that night we went for a walk, after you told me the truth." Her mouth quirked in a smile and she said in a passable imitation of his flat Iowan accent, " 'I've got an amazing crew, Edith. I expect them to be smart, skilled and brave, and they never let me down— so I'm careful to always, _always_ recognize that smart, those skills, that bravery.'

"You were quite right— and I can appreciate that for myself, now."

Kirk smiled at her, came around a corner— and saw Spock and McCoy come into the thirty-foot clearing that lay there from the other side, being led by a man from the outpost's security force.

"Put her down, Jim," McCoy said, indicating a spot clear of smaller rocks. He already had his medical sensor in his hand, and when he saw that Edith was awake, a huge weight of worry left McCoy's face. "Nurse Kirk, has the Academy stopped teaching its recruits to _duck,_ or were you just asleep at the switch?"

"Oh, well, you know, I get so distracted by my husband— he's quite gorgeous, you know," Edith said. "I'll admit, I was looking at his backside when I got shot."

"Good grief," McCoy said, and checked his tricorder. "Okay, the usual— bad burns and the damned thing seems to have made your metabolism try to crash." He looked up at Jim and said, "She'll be fine, Jim. Promise."

Jim Kirk let out a breath he hadn't been aware that he was holding, then looked at his first officer. "Spock, how about you and I try to get a little closer to the Guardian? I don't know if the Romulan weapons even can damage it— but I'd like to get a look."

"Agreed, Captain." Spock looked at the ensign who'd guided him and McCoy here and said, "Please stay and guard the doctor and the captain's wife, Ensign Fox."

"Of course, sir," the young man replied. His phaser was out already, and he was looking at a tricorder, keeping an eye out for approaching life forms. "I won't leave their sides."

"I have memorized the local maps, Captain," Spock said, and motioned at the trail Kirk had used to get here. "Approximately forty yards back along that trail is a smaller path that will take us near to the clearing where the Guardian is— if the disruptor fire hasn't caused rock falls that would close them down."

"Lead on, Mr. Spock," Kirk said, and with one final wave at his wife, he followed his first officer down the path towards the Guardian of Forever.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

They'd barely started down the path towards the Guardian when Kirk asked the one question that he still had. "What's going on in orbit, Spock?"

"Mister Scott is working to keep the Romulan ship at bay," Spock said. "Obviously, he is having some success, as the planetary barrage has stopped."

"Either that, or they already destroyed the Guardian," Kirk sighed. "That would be a waste."

"Forgive me for correcting you, Captain," Spock said, his voice actually sounding worried, "but that would be a catastrophe. If the Guardian is destroyed, I suspect that the resultant energies released would destroy this planet at the minimum. It might even progress to the point where the local star goes nova."

"Oh, shit," Kirk said. "Well, with Sulu and Chekov still up there, seems like there's a good chance the _Enterprise_ will come out on top. Scotty's no fool, he'll play a smart game."

"I concur with your analysis, Captain," Spock said. He glanced briefly over his shoulder and added, "In addition, all three of the officers in question have either experienced or studied your tactics when dealing with Romulans. As you have an undefeated record in encounters with that race, I believe that your example will be sufficient to garner a victory."

"Why, Spock, if we weren't both married men, I'd worry that you were flirting with me," Kirk joked.

"While there are Vulcans who are attracted to their own gender or to both, Captain," Spock said, his voice slightly amused, "they are less common than in the human race— and I am neither.

"In addition, even were I actually attracted to you, I would not dare to act on it. Nyota is capable of a level of violence that surprises even me, and I am more aware of her capabilities than any other being alive. Were I to 'cheat' on her, regardless of the gender of my partner, I believe that she would place me in sick bay for some time. Repeatedly."

"I can believe it," Kirk said, grinning. "Edith's much more mild in temperament, and I'd still be afraid to cheat on her. She could probably destroy me as a commander with one really sad look…."

Spock opened his mouth to reply— and the ground shook again, the sky above the rocks they moved through turned green, and the air tore at them for a moment.

"Come on, Scotty, shut those assholes down," Kirk muttered, once he'd steadied himself and started moving again.

"It is regrettable that Starfleet was unable to learn to detect a Romulan ship via the cloaking device we recovered," Spock said as they clambered over a small rockfall. "Of course, given that the device fused into a collection of lumps of melted metal as soon as Mr. Scott disconnected it from the _Enterprise_'s deflector array, it seems that we were unlikely to do so.

"I have often wondered if the self-destruct device that caused that would have worked had we not been forced to use the cloaking device for our own escape."

"Yeah, I think it would have," Kirk said. "That's really the only edge the Romulans have any more, Spock, what with our new shields being able to withstand their plasma cannon."

"A valid point, Captain," Spock said— and he stopped walking. "It seems that this path will do us no good, sir." He stepped aside a little to let Kirk see the massive blockage of fallen boulders that lay around the corner Spock had just turned. "I do not believe that we could cut through that with phasers in less than an hour."

"Is there an alternate path, Spock?" Kirk asked. He might be able to climb that mess with Spock's help, but it would take quite a while.

"Yes, Captain," Spock assured him. "We need backtrack only a short distance, and we will come out some fifty yards away from the clearing where the Guardian of Forever stands, as opposed to directly into that clearing, but that may be more advisable, given that it is taking more time than we thought for the _Enterprise_ to secure victory over the Romulans."

"Yeah, I'll go along with that," Kirk said as they started backtracking. "Dying in a planetary bombardment with ship's disruptors, not real high on my list of desirable ways to go."

It didn't take them as long as Kirk had feared to reach the area near the Guardian, and to both men's relief, they could see the top of its arch as they came out onto the wide path approaching it, which was, at least momentarily empty of living beings.

"It seems that the Guardian is perhaps more resilient than the materials it is constructed from would indicate," Spock said, and he actually sounded relieved. "One can hope that—"

Another blast of disruptors slammed into the Guardian then, and the shockwave from the massive weapons threw Kirk and Spock to the ground.

Kirk looked up as quickly as he could, and saw that the Guardian, while apparently unharmed, was glowing like it did when it spoke— though much more dimly. Also, a mist had begun to swirl in the center of the gateway at the center of the Guardian, as it did when active….

Something came flying out of the Guardian, rolled across the ground maybe twenty yards, then leapt to its feet with a roar of fury. It looked like a mountain lion, only bigger, and its tail was very short, almost bobbed— while it's teeth more closely resembled tusks, if very sharp ones.

"What the hell is that!" Kirk muttered as the thing looked around— and saw him and Spock.

Despite being some fifteen feet away, Spock heard the comment and answered. "A smilodon, captain— more commonly referred to as a 'saber-toothed tiger,' though erroneously, as it was not truly related—"

The beast leapt at Spock, and Kirk shot it even as his first officer did— luckily for the Vulcan. The combined beams on heavy stun actually managed to knock the creature out, which would likely not have been the case with a single phaser beam.

"Fascinating," Spock said as he climbed to his feet. "The Guardian of Forever seems to be suffering a malfunction, Captain, though I cannot—"

The sound of Romulan transporters interrupted Spock, and he and Kirk both charged for the rocks they'd come out of to get here as the columns of blue-green, starburst-filled light started to resolve into humanoid forms. They made it out of sight before the twelve Romulans could see them, and stayed low for a moment, hoping to assess what the new arrivals intended to do.

The Romulans solidified, looked around— and froze at the sight of the saber-toothed tiger lying unconscious not far from them. One of them produced something that Jim Kirk thought was probably their equivalent of a tricorder and scanned the beast, then said something that neither Kirk nor Spock understood.

_I swear, I'm never leaving the ship again without a universal translator,_ Kirk thought.

Satisfied that the saber-tooth wasn't a threat, the Romulans split into two groups, one of which started back towards the buildings of the research station while the other began to cautiously approach the Guardian of Forever.

Kirk glanced over at Spock, hiding some fifteen feet from his captain, and saw the Vulcan speaking into his communicator, presumably warning the security men back at the science station that there were Romulans approaching from behind. He looked back towards the Romulans approaching the Guardian—

—just as the portal at the center ejected black smoke, three people— two on fire and screaming— and what appeared to be a cloud of embers.

The Romulans immediately killed the two burning people, and Kirk had to fight to make himself stay hidden after seeing the cold-blooded murder.

The third person, a man of thirty or forty, wearing a long tunic and sandals, immediately turned and launched himself at the nearest Romulan, screaming in fury. The Romulan, a truly huge specimen, almost seven feet tall and covered in slabs of muscle, simply caught the man by the throat, snapped his arms sideways— and broke the man's neck.

Again, Kirk had to fight not to charge the Romulans. Something else came out of the Guardian at that moment, or he might have been seen as he nearly stood and fired his phaser.

This time, what came out of the time portal was a wolf— a big, _big_ wolf, and it wasn't alone. Right behind it were another dozen of its kind, and the pack hit the Romulans like a flash flood, knocking most of them down, and, apparently maddened by fear and their journey to a completely alien environment, attacking them.

Kirk was silently rooting for the wolves when the Guardian of Forever half-lit up again— and three people came staggering out of the center of the portal, three people who were, in Kirk's opinion, the most mismatched trio he'd ever seen.

First came a girl, a tall, pretty, young woman with red hair surrounding a round, pale face. She wore a short denim skirt, a white pullover top with a dark leather jacket over it, old-Earth athletic shoes, and socks.

Immediately behind her came a Roman centurion, complete with bronze armor, short sword, and a voluminous red cloak. His face was a little long, his hair short and brown— he lacked the crested helmet and the round shield of a centurion, but that seemed to be all.

And staggering out last, letting out a startled "Whoa!" came a very slender man with a top hat on his thick dark hair, and a full tuxedo and tails on the rest of him.

"What the hell just happened?" cried the centurion— in perfectly understandable English, right down to his accent. "Where are we!"

"I don't know," answered the man in the tuxedo, and he sounded intrigued, not upset or angry. "Just a moment, I'll— oh, hel-lo there." The man produced a silver instrument of some sort from inside his tuxedo jacket and aimed it at the Guardian. "Well, you've certainly been ill-used, haven't you? Perhaps I can help…."

About that time, the wolves that were still alive made a break for it— and the Romulans started climbing to their feet, weapons still in hand.

"Rory, I'll need a couple of minutes," called the man in the tux as he looked at the instrument in his hand. "Do see to it that no one kills us, there's a good chap!"

"Are you mad!" the centurion— presumably Rory— called back, drawing his sword. "There are six of them, you know!"

"Yes, and you've got your wife," the tuxedoed man called back. "Seems like a fair fight to me."

About that time, the nearest Romulan to the newcomers shook his head to clear it, looked at his bitten left arm— and looked up in surprise as the girl— young woman, Kirk supposed— put a hand on his arm and said, "Here, let me take a look, I'm always bandaging up my husband and— hey! Get your hands off me!"

The Romulan had grabbed her by the shoulders and was shouting in her face, shaking her while he did so. Even as Kirk stood up to intervene, Rory, the man in the centurion outfit, crossed the several steps between the woman and himself, slammed his shoulder into that of the Romulan and snarled "That's my wife!"

The Romulan staggered back, letting go of the woman, then looked at the man and stepped forward, leveling his disruptor as he did so. In response, the centurion drew his sword and slapped the disruptor from the Romulan's hand, all in one smooth motion.

As the Romulan stared in astonishment and shook his stinging hand, Rory stepped between the alien and the woman and repeated, his voice hard, "I said _that's my wife!_ Now back off!"

Before the scene could change, smoke and fire belched from the Guardian of Forever, propelling a figure before it and sending that figure rolling across the ground to end up closer to the Romulans than the Guardian. The man in the tuxedo made a small sound of annoyance and said, "That won't do— here we are, old thing, I think this will help."

As the tux-wearer pointed his silver wand-like device at the Guardian and it started making a sound vaguely like one of McCoy's medical sensors, things started happening very fast.

The rolling form started to get to its feet, revealing itself to be a slender woman of middling height. She was wearing loose gray pants with big pockets on the thighs, bloused into black boots of some sort, and a gray, long-sleeved pullover. Her black hair was back in a ponytail, and she had a wide belt on, with a sheathed knife on one side of it, and a black box about the size of a closed communicator with two metal prongs sticking out of it on the other.

"What the— where am I?" she asked, also in English, though her voice sounded to Kirk like she, too, came from the American Midwest— completely without accent, at least to his ears. "Who the hell are— holy shit!"

The second young woman— Kirk thought her to be in her early twenties, like the first— had gotten a look at all of the people around her, and seemed to be shocked or fascinated by the Romulans.

The nearest Romulan soldier to her grabbed the new arrival's arm, jerked her knife from her belt with his other hand at the same time— and she seemed to almost explode into motion.

One second the Romulan was lifting the woman in gray by her right upper arm with his left hand and holding her knife in his right— and the next, the Romulan was staggering backwards, the knife flying out of his hand and the woman free and crouched where he'd dropped her… when she had fired off a series of kicks with her right foot, the first to the Romulan's knee, the second to his crotch and the last a knee to his jaw as he folded forward and dropped her (and her knife) when she kicked him in that place where human, Romulan, Klingon and Vulcan males all shared a hatred of being kicked.

Kirk had barely seen her move— and he found himself grinning in admiration.

Then the Romulans, apparently seeing a challenge to their honor, between the unarmed woman and the primitively armed centurion, all holstered their disruptors and started forward as a group.

"Crap," Kirk muttered, and stood up straight, even as Spock did the same. "Fire, Spock."

Even as Kirk leveled his phaser, something hit him in the back, and he staggered forward, out his hiding place and dropped his phaser. A moment later, Spock literally flew out from behind the clump of rocks he'd been using for cover, and fell heavily to the ground.

"Uh-oh," Kirk said as he looked back and saw the six Romulans he and Spock had thought were reinforcing the ones assaulting the Science Station emerging from the rocks. "Hey, Spock? I think the guy with the tricorder earlier did more than make sure that the saber-tooth was knocked out."

Spock looked around as he stood up and said, "I believe that you are correct, Captain."

"I believe," Kirk said, looking around at the eleven fight-capable Romulans around them, who were, at least, leaving their weapons holstered, "that we're in trouble."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Oh… my… god!" the redhead breathed, her voice filled with wonder and delight. "Oh, my GOD! Rory! Do you see this! Rory, these are _Romulans!_ And that's—"

The biggest of the Romulans, the muscle-covered giant, looked at the redhead and said, in passable English— Federation Standard, but they were the same— "Shut up. Now."

"Don't you take that tone with me!" the redhead bristled, stepping forward— or trying to, her husband the centurion held her back. "You're just a figment of someone's imagination, an—"

Suddenly, the woman in gray, the one who'd so casually put one of the Romulans on the ground, moved, dove forward and under the nearest Romulan to her, and grabbed for her knife. She came up near the big Romulan with her weapon— a serious knife, meant for fighting, with a six-inch blade and a hilt heavy enough to make it an effective bludgeon.

_Any port in a storm,_ Kirk thought— and foot-swept the nearest Romulan to him, even as Spock came to his feet leading with a double-fisted blow at the Romulan who stood over him.

As the woman with the knife began slashing, kicking and punching at the biggest of the Romulans, the night lit up slightly as something in orbit exploded, and most everyone stopped to stare at the ball of fire in the sky for a moment.

"That better not have been _my ship!"_ Kirk snarled, and he leapt at the nearest standing Romulan.

Even as he attacked the Romulan, Kirk noticed the man in the tuxedo, whom everyone seemed to have forgotten, put away his silvery wand-thing and turn towards the fight. "Oh, dear," he said, mildly. "Well— you'll be all right now. Can you get my friends and I and the other young woman back to where we belong?"

The Guardian flashed gold as it spoke, but Kirk couldn't hear its response— he was busy trying to fight two Romulan soldiers at once, trying to watch Spock, the woman in gray, the centurion and his wife at the same time.

"Oh, dear, that's… are you quite sure?" The tuxedoed man looked sad for a moment, then said, "Well, I suppose she might stay here, don't you?" Flashing stone and a low reply again. "Well…." The man in the tux looked unsure for a moment then sighed and said, "No, no— not my universe, mustn't interfere. In fact, mustn't stay. Thank you for helping us get home, you're a good chap— I know a time machine that would love to meet you.

"Hey! You two! Time to go!"

"Coming!" the man Rory called. "Just want to make sure—"

"They'll be fine, Rory, they've got reinforcements coming!" Even as the man in the tuxedo spoke, a dozen columns of spinning white sparks appeared around the clearing.

"We can't go!" the redhead cried. "Look at them— this is _star trek!_ We have to stay!"

"No, we must go now if we're ever going home," the tuxedoed man said. "Come along, Pond!"

The centurion looked around at the appearing _Enterprise_ crew and said, "He's right, Amy— we need to go."

"Oh, all right!" the redhead said, and let the centurion lead her away as Kirk, Spock and the woman in gray kept fighting— the Romulans were getting desperate, knowing that they were about to be surrounded by enemies.

As the strange trio reached the Guardian, the woman stopped, looked back at the still-raging battle— the _Enterprise_ security men were wading in hand-to-hand, since there was no such thing as a clear field of fire— and spoke one final time. "Oi! Captain Kirk!"

Kirk looked around in surprise, sure that no one had spoken his name since those three arrived, and the girl pointed at him and said sternly, "Don't you ever let them promote you to admiral— you'll hate every second of it!"

Then she was gone, tugged through the Guardian of Forever by her centurion-garbed husband.

"What the hell?" Kirk mused— and went down as, while he stared after the vanishing trio, a Romulan kicked him in the gut.

As Kirk rolled on the ground in pain— like Vulcans, Romulans were significantly stronger than humans, and the blow left him unable to breathe or stand— the woman in gray appeared between him and the Romulan, and her fists flashed several times, impacting on the alien's stomach and chest.

Unfortunately, this Romulan had on body armor, and her blows did no good at all. The Romulan backhanded her aside, and she slammed into a rock head-first. Kirk started to try to foot-sweep the Romulan— and Spock appeared behind him, clamped his hand on the juncture of neck and shoulder. The Romulan's eyes rolled up in his head, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Thanks, Spock," Kirk gasped, and started to try to stand.

Then McCoy was there, and Edith, and his wife was pressing him to the ground and waving a medical scanner over him.

"Bones," Kirk managed. "The woman— by the rocks. Hit head first— is she…?"

McCoy moved that way at a run, used his scanner, and called back, "She's alive, Jim— but in bad shape.

"Edith, I'm taking this woman to the _Enterprise_ for surgery— you stay here and treat any injured who don't need surgery, send up any that do."

"Yes, Doctor," Edith said, pressing a hand to Jim's cheek briefly before saying, "Don't stand until you've recovered your breath." She stood and turned to Spock. "Mr. Spock, are you injured?"

"Only slightly, Nurse Kirk," Spock said. "I am quite capable of functioning without treatment for as long as needed. Abrasions and bruises are my only injuries."

Edith checked over the two security men who had been hurt, sent one up to the _Enterprise_ for treatment of his broken ribs, treated the cuts and bruises of the other herself. While she did that, then treated Spock's minor injuries, Kirk used his communicator to call Scotty and get a run-down on the battle and the damage to the _Enterprise_.

"They've learned a bit, Captain," Scotty said to explain the occasional renewed barrage on the planet. "They'd fight us for an exchange or two, then run— and that ship had a navigator worthy of Mr. Chekov, Captain, for three times they ran a bit on impulse, warped out, then warped back almost right away— and just far enough away to get a shot or two off at the planet."

"Ouch," Kirk said in sympathy. "How'd you beat that little trick?"

"Oh, I dinna do it, sir," Scotty said, a grin in his voice. "Was our wonder-boy, Captain. Chekov noticed that they used the exact same angle of departure-to-return both times, and were gone within a tenth of a second of the same amount of time. So he figured out where they'd pop back in that last time, and we were less than a dozen miles off, with phasers already firing, and as soon as we saw the corona from phaser hits on their shields, we just gave them a few photon torpedoes that we had lying around to spare— and that did for them right nicely, sir."

"Nicely done, Mr. Scott— in fact, pass that on to the entire crew for me, please." Kirk shook his head in relief and said, "And tell Chekov that he'll have yet another commendation from his commanding officer. In fact, you all will.

"So, how bad's our girl hurt, Scotty?"

"Oh, well, we took a bit of a pounding— I had Sulu put us between them and the planet as often as they started shooting that way." Scotty sighed as though he'd put his own mother between the planet and the Romulans, then continued. "Shield generators are out over fifty percent of the ship, we took some hull damage here an' there, but not too serious. Impulse engines are at twenty-five percent, and we'll no be goin' to warp until I can repair the damage the miserable bastards did to the starboard nacelle. We've got about three dozen injured, sir— and five dead. I'm sorry for that, I am, and I'll be writing their families, an' you'll allow it, sir. They died on my watch, Captain, it was my responsibility."

"We'll both do it, Scotty," Kirk said quietly. Then he added more firmly, "And stop beating yourself up, Mr. Scott— the sort of battle you just fought could've gotten a lot more people than it did hurt or killed. You're just as responsible for the lives you saved, Scotty, and there are a lot more of those than there are wounded or dead— and my life happens to be one of those in the good column.

"Thank you, Mr. Scott."

"Aye, Captain," Scotty replied, and he sounded a little less morose than he had. "Will you be coming up right away, sir?"

"I want to make sure Lt. Rhys is comfortable with the numbers here before I come up, Scotty." Kirk smiled a little, and did the next best thing, and the thing that would probably help Montgomery Scott recover from the hurt he was feeling faster than anything else. "Mister Scott, give Sulu the conn, and go start putting the _Enterprise_ back to rights. That's an order."

"Aye, Captain," Scotty said, and he sounded better already. "Scott out."

It took very little time to find out that, while there were a dozen injuries, only one of Rhys's men had been killed, and that one had been busy saving the life of a fellow officer. Kirk commiserated with Rhys and the man whose life had been saved, made sure both understood that it wasn't their fault that Ensign Bradbury had been killed, and checked over the arrangements for holding the nineteen Romulans that they'd managed to capture. He then collected his wife, Uhura, and the security men who weren't needed on planet right now— they'd be keeping a heavy watch on the Guardian and the outpost in general, but there was no need for more than thirty security men at one time— and went back to the _Enterprise_. Spock stayed on planet, though he promised Uhura that he wouldn't be more than an hour. He wanted to speak with the Guardian, make sure it was functioning properly— and see if he could learn anything about the people who had come through while it was malfunctioning.

Once he'd been to the starboard engine nacelle to speak to Scotty and by the bridge to assure Sulu and the rest of the crew there that he was both fine and very pleased with their performance, Kirk left Sulu in charge again, and went to sick bay. There he visited the seven crewmen who were going to require attention that meant staying in sick bay at least overnight, spoke with them, told them quite truthfully that he was proud to have them on his crew, and went to wait in McCoy's office for him to finish the surgery on the woman who'd been, as Kirk recalled it, blown out of the Guardian by some sort of explosion.

He'd barely been there five minutes when Bones came in, looking tired and annoyed. He saw Jim sitting in one of the chairs on the visitors' side of the desk and nodded. "You want a drink, Jim?"

"Sure," Kirk agreed, and watched as McCoy poured them each a small glass of Saurian brandy. "So, the woman? She okay?"

"She will be," McCoy said, and shook his head. "She got lucky, Jim. There was some brain damage, but nothing that will affect her cognition. It was all in the communication center of the brain, but I was able to stop all the bleeding before the damage got too bad. She's going to likely have some difficulty speaking and writing for a few days, until her brain re-forges the paths that were damaged, but it will improve and return to normal fairly quickly— within two weeks, I'd say. But she's probably going to have to hunt for words, maybe make inappropriate substitutions when she can't find the right one, at least for a day or two, maybe as long as four days."

"Is that what took so long, Bones?" Kirk asked. "For you, that was a long time in surgery. Was it the brain injury?"

"Only partly," McCoy said, and shook his head in a mixture of frustration and admiration. "Jim, if I didn't know better, I'd swear that woman was your sister, or some relation, anyway."

"What do you mean, Bones?" Kirk asked, and braced himself for a shot across the bows. McCoy had that look on his face that said he was ready to give his captain a little hell.

"I mean that she doesn't know when to quit either," McCoy said, shaking his head. "Three broken ribs, two cracked, hairline fracture of the jaw, dislocated elbow, three broken fingers on her left hand, one on her right, two broken bones in her left foot… and as I hear it, she was fighting right up until that Romulan Spock nerve-pinched knocked her into those rocks."

"She was," Kirk said, and raised his glass in admiration. "Saved my life at least once."

"And mine, Captain," said Spock's voice from behind him. "She is a very skilled fighter. I believe that she could give you a challenge sparring, Captain, and perhaps defeat Mr. Rhys."

"Have a seat, Spock," McCoy said, and Spock sat next to the captain. "I'd offer you a drink, but—"

"Doctor, at this time, I would appreciate a small drink," Spock said. When McCoy stared at him in surprise, Spock said, "I do drink, Dr. McCoy, just not very often. I believe that a small amount of whiskey or brandy would aid me in relaxing those muscles that are damaged. I would rather do that than waste either your time or medical supplies."

"Eminently logical, Spock," McCoy said, and poured him two fingers of Saurian brandy, handed it to him, and raised his glass. "To the health of our mystery guest— may she recover fully."

Spock and Kirk met that toast, then McCoy asked, "So, she's that good, huh, Spock?"

"Indeed, Doctor," Spock said, nodding. "She was responsible for the unconsciousness or disabling of four Romulans— and I believe she is human, is she not?"

"Completely human, yes," McCoy said, his eyes widening. "She can't weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds, Spock— and she took out four Romulans?"

"Yes, Doctor," Spock said gravely. "I believe she might have achieved a fifth, had her last target not been wearing body armor. The Romulans plainly did not expect either her skill or ferocity. I will be most interested in finding out where and when she comes from."

Spock had, by the look of him, been thinking to surprise McCoy by his addition of the word "when," but the doctor just smirked a little bit and said, "I believe I can help there, Mr. Spock." Spock raised an eyebrow in surprise, and McCoy said, "She's been hurt before, and the surgical techniques used to repair the damage— including a pair of metallic pins in her left elbow and the extensive use of metal reinforcement on her left forearm, and at least one bit of thoracic surgery— some lung repair. The techniques used were originated in the late twentieth to early twenty-first century, and had all but ceased being used by 2020 or so. I'm going to guess that she came from Earth, and from sometime between 2005 and 2018."

"I am impressed, Doctor McCoy," Spock said, and raised his glass a little before sipping from it. "The Guardian was able to pinpoint her year of origin for me. She came from the year 2012.

"And she cannot return, gentlemen."

"What?" Kirk said, sitting up straight. "What do you mean, 'cannot return,' Spock?"

"Forgive me, Captain, I may have misspoken." Spock looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "We could return her to her time or slightly after it— at the risk of changing history as negatively as Edith's remaining in her own time after the moment when she was supposed to die would have."

"Holy— the Guardian told you that!" Kirk asked. "That sounds… way past its usual information level, Spock."

"Indeed, Captain— but I believe that the Guardian of Forever has changed significantly in both its ability to function and its ability to supply knowledge and entry into the time stream with precision." Spock looked slightly disgruntled as he added, "Apparently, the humanoid in the tuxedo 'repaired' the Guardian— and expanded its capabilities to include precision focus. Or so the Guardian told me."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

For a long moment, Kirk sat with his mouth open. Then he closed it, took a big sip of brandy, gasped a little, and said, "Holy shit. Who was that guy? And for that matter, who were the people with him?"

"The Guardian," Spock said, frowning openly (in front of McCoy, no less!), "would say only that they are time travelers from a parallel universe. It refused to answer further on that subject.

"However, it assured me that it could insert travelers at very specific points in time and space, from this point forward— including returning the young woman recovering from her injuries in our sick bay to the precise time and place from which she came.

"However, according to the Guardian of Forever… if we do this, she will die. She was fated to die less than a minute later, and to die of massive burn trauma. If we return her _after_ the moment when she was meant to die, return her safely to her time, we risk derailing the history we know."

"Then she stays," Kirk said, completely without hesitation. This got him a pleased look from McCoy, and even Spock nodded as though he approved. "I just hope she adjusts as well as Edith did."

"You and me both, Jim," McCoy said, nodding. "Your wife, Captain, is one hell of a nurse.

"Also, she was scheduled off-duty an hour ago. What is it about you Kirks that you can never quit working on time?"

"We see a job, we do it," Kirk said, and shrugged a little. "And we work until it's done, Bones.

"Shouldn't surprise you in my wife— after all, no one told her to feed the homeless and the hungry. She saw the need— she filled the need."

"Well, right now, the doctor says she's in need of some time off, after going back to work as soon as I got that disruptor wound repaired," McCoy said. He finished his drink and said, "In fact, so am I. And so are you, Jim, Spock— it's been a long, ugly day. I prescribe a good meal, recreation as needed, and a good night's sleep for both of you. And before you go telling me that Vulcans don't need recreation, Mr. Spock, let me remind you that you are part human— and your wife is completely so. If you give me any guff, I'll pass the orders on to her.

"Oh, and Jim— I had to give Edith a metabolic booster to clear up the shock to her system. She needs to eat big to counter that, don't let her eat a normal meal, that won't be enough. And she may be… pretty full of energy." McCoy waggled his eyebrows and grinned like a teenager. "You can thank me for that later, Captain."

"I very probably will," Kirk said with a laugh. _"If_ I survive— she's never exactly been a sluggard in that department anyway, so Edith on metabolic booster may just wear me out."

McCoy chortled, Kirk grinned, and even Spock had a gleam of amusement in his eyes as the three men left McCoy's office and went their separate ways, Jim tugging his wife along as she protested that there was still work to do— until the doctor ordered her off duty, at which point she smiled, then laughed and went willingly enough.

Jim and Edith ate a hearty meal that they actually cooked together— Kirk was fairly sure that he had the only fully functional (if compact) kitchen on any _Constitution_ class starship in space, but Edith loved cooking, and had infected him with the bug. Scotty had welcomed the challenge of making space and meeting the power requirements— and just like that, the Kirks had a kitchen.

After dinner, Edith Kirk proved that she did indeed have a surplus of energy to work off— and her husband cooperated in that effort with a smile.

In the morning, Jim Kirk went to sick bay to check on the injured there before he was due on the bridge— and he found himself in the right place at the right time to greet their new friend from the past. She'd fought beside him, saved his life, saved Spock's life, and, he was pretty sure, they'd both managed to return the favor at least once. It had been that sort of battle. So… she was a friend, just one he hadn't actually met yet.

He'd just left the bed of Engineer's Mate First Class Teller when he heard Nurse Ilaré, an older woman from Zambia, call, "Doctor McCoy? The young lady in bed twelve is waking up."

McCoy, looking rested and fresh, came out of his office and headed that way. He saw Kirk coming out of the enclosure around Teller's bed, and motioned him to come along. Kirk followed, interested to see what McCoy had in mind for telling the young woman her situation.

She was lying on her back with her eyes— dark green, and framed by delicate lashes— open, and had her head tilted back at an odd angle, so she could stare in fascination at the diagnostic readout above her bed. She heard people coming, and looked sharply at them— but seemed to relax when she saw Kirk.

_Something familiar probably helps,_ Jim thought as she smiled a little and nodded at him. He returned both, and she seemed to relax still more.

"Good morning, young lady," McCoy said, taking refuge in the old-fashioned manners he had learned, he said, from his own grandfather, also a surgeon. "My name is Leonard McCoy, and I'm a doctor. For the moment, I'm _your_ doctor, and I'd like you to listen to me for a moment before you try to speak, if you'd be so kind."

The woman— part of Kirk was tempted to think "girl," but she had too much skill for him to think of her that way, and had used it too readily— nodded at McCoy, and tried to sit up. McCoy touched a control on the side of the bed, and it rose, elevating her head and shoulders. She smiled a thank you, and McCoy went on, encouraged.

"You were hurt pretty badly yesterday," McCoy said, slowly and carefully, "but you will recover completely, Miss, I promise you. However, there was some minor brain damage to the communication centers of your brain. Very minor, I was able to stop the bleeding quickly, and you will recover completely— but for a couple of days, maybe as long as four days, you are going to experience occasional difficulty with speaking or writing, even typing, if you try that.

"Now, I know that's going to be frustrating, and if you're anything like me, when you get frustrated, you get annoyed. That won't help. Patience is the key, until your brain finds a new path around the damage. Maybe a substitute word, or a sound-alike word— no one here's going to make fun of you if you get the wrong word. We know what happened, and you got hurt helping a couple of my friends, who also happen to be my superior officers.

"So… past that brain injury, you had some broken bones, a dislocation of the elbow, and a whole lot of bruises and minor cuts. I took care of all of those things, and you're in great shape— you can get out of bed after we've talked a little, and I've examined you.

"Okay… so, lets see how the speaking works. Can you tell me your name?"

"Ky—" The young woman stopped, frowned a little, then took a deep breath and said, "Kylie. K-Kylie Gid— Gideon."

"Okay, that's a good start," McCoy said. "You can call me Leonard, or doctor if you prefer. The lady beside you is Nurse Ilaré, and the guy on your right is Captain Kirk."

"Hello," Kylie Gideon said slowly, "Nurse Ilaré. Hello, Doctor McCoy. Hello, Captain Kirk." She focused on McCoy for a moment, and said, her voice full of feeling, "Thank y-you, Doctor. I was— I thought I would… would…." She frowned, closed her eyes, and Kirk saw her eyes moving rapidly beneath the lids. Then she opened her eyes and said, "I thought I would… ex—_expire,_ when I saw the rocks. The rocks… and those men… they were… were… not normal. Too strong. Too… too… damn it. Too speedy! And the ears… were…. Not curved. P-p-p—sharp!

"This… place. Where am I?"

"That's a complicated one," McCoy said. He looked at the woman, glanced up at her vitals— her heartbeat and breathing hadn't changed, nor had her blood pressure, despite her mild agitation. "But you aren't overreacting to your temporary disability, your frustration isn't affecting your vitals, and you're plainly an intelligent young woman.

"Jim… why don't you introduce yourself fully."

Kirk knew what McCoy wanted, and he smiled a little as he said the words that never failed to fill him with pride and delight. "Miss Gideon, I am Captain James T. Kirk of the United Federation of Planets Starship _Enterprise._ I'd like to thank you for wading in like you did yesterday. You saved my life, my first officer's life (and he's also one of my best friends), and… well, you might have prevented the deaths of millions of people. Even billions.

"And I'd appreciate it if you'd call me Jim."

For a long, long moment, Kylie Gideon stared at Jim Kirk. Then she looked around slowly, looked back over her shoulder at the diagnostic readout, the bits of sick bay that she could see, and back at the three people around her. "I… th-thank you, Jim. Kylie, please? I… wh-wh-wh— damn. What time is this? No! What… year! What year is this?"

"The doctor was right, Kylie," Kirk said with a grin. "You are smart.

"Welcome to July of 2262, Kylie Gideon."

The young woman's eyes closed, and she took a deep breath. Then she opened her eyes and said, very slowly and carefully. "Thank you. But I— I don't w-want to be… mean? No. Rude!

"I don't want to be rude, Jim, b-b-but… can I g-g-go… home?"

Jim looked at Bones, and the doctor nodded, slowly, his eyes darkening. "Go ahead, Jim. Or—"

"No, I'll do it." Kirk looked Kylie Gideon straight in the eyes and said, "I'm afraid not, Kylie. The… device that accidentally brought you to our time, it's not something we made, or even completely understand, but it's… intelligent. Self-aware. It knows things about time that we may never understand. It said that you came out just before you were supposed to die, and if we send you back after that, you'll change history. We've some experience with that— and it's a risk that we can't afford to take.

"Can you tell us was happening when you… came to our time?"

"The bomb," Kylie said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I— I remem— remember. They got past— I told him! I t-told him to r-r-re— to fire Markham! To hire someone… b-b-better! Smarter! He d-d-didn't listen! Was im—imposed by… no! He was… impressed! Impressed by stupid m-m-medals and w-wouldn't _listen!_ I told him! They got t-t-to h-him, got in, got— got a bomb in. B-Booster went nuts and— and I knew! I tried to— there wasn't time! Damn it! Damn you, M-Markham, you— incomplete _bastard!"_

This time, Kylie didn't notice the wrong word— Jim Kirk was pretty sure that she'd meant to say "incompetent bastard," not "incomplete bastard," but wasn't about to point it out now— and her vitals did climb sharply. McCoy, reluctant to sedate her, simply said, "Hey, easy, now— it's okay, you're safe, and—"

"It was my j-j-_job!" _Kylie said, almost shouted. "He— I was su-suh— meant to keep him safe! But he would—wouldn't listen, not about… about external s-s-sec— dammitall!

"He hired Markham for building sec—"

Jim Kirk decided to see if helping her would help, or make it worse— no way to tell, and that one word seemed to be frustrating her hugely. "Security," he said, nodding. "This Markham guy… he was supposed to take care of external security?"

"Yes! Thank you!" Kylie visibly calmed herself, took a couple of deep breaths, then said, "Markham. He was… useless. Relied t-too much on…." She hesitated, closed her eyes again, and again, her eyes moved under the lid as though scanning pages of words. "Markham relied too much on t-t-_toys._ Elec— electronics. Gadgets. I… wanted each. No, both! I wanted someone with both. Gadgets and p-p— trained people, people who would…."

This time, it was McCoy who came to her rescue, and given that the doctor felt the same way about the practice of medicine as Kylie Gideon seemingly did about her job, whatever the specifics of it, that didn't surprise Kirk at all.

"You wanted your boss to hire someone who would use people who could use gadgets— but wouldn't rely on them. People who understood that sometimes, you have to trust your instincts." McCoy smiled as Kylie grabbed his hand and nodded almost frantically. "I feel the same way about medicine. Sometimes— especially out here, where the unknown is a regular occurrence— sometimes, you have to go by instinct."

"Yes," Kylie said, and let out a long sigh. "Thank you, doctor.

"Booster… he went nuts, and— and I knew. I tried to re— to get to Mr. Tremayne, but… too late. I was off shift, and B-Booster, he wouldn't work with anyone else, not— not even… oh, shit, Kent's dead… and poor… poor B-Booster, he… I hope. I hope it was… quick. He ran, got— got away from m-me. Broke h-his collar, it m-m-must have been a h-h—." Eyes closed. Rapid movement. Eyes opened. _"Giant_ goddamned bomb."

Kirk got it, then— Booster had been a dog, probably her dog, and trained to sniff out explosives.

"You were, what, a security specialist?" Kirk asked, as Kylie, seemingly unashamed, wiped at the tears that had spilled over her cheeks.

"S-s-sort of." She gulped, took the glass of water McCoy handed her, sipped for a moment, sighed, and looked back at Kirk. "Security, yes— mostly personal security, up-close-and-personal. But d-don't call us b-bodyguards! We… h-hate that term." A ghost of a smile crossed her face, and she continued. "Personal security, yes— but also t-trained in… counter-t-t-ter— crap on a candlestick!"

"Easy," Kirk said, even as he smiled over the odd expletive she'd used. "Slow, remember? Patience, like Bones said."

"Bones?" Kylie asked. Then she got it. "Oh. D-doctor McCoy?"

"Yes, Jim's been calling me that for years," McCoy said. "I kind of like it, honestly."

"Counter…?" Kirk encouraged gently. "Counter-intelligence, maybe?"

"No." Kylie shook her head and said, very, very carefully, "Counterterrorism. I was a trained coun—counterterrorism expert. Specialized in… single-target protection, p-personal protection. W-we were the— the ones who stopped th-them when they got p-pi— pissed off at one person. Or… w-we tried, and… and that b-b-bomb… my whole team… I can't….

"C-could I b-b-be awake— dammit! Alone! J-j-just for a few m-minutes… please?"


End file.
